


No Fear

by mockingjayne



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 103
Words: 65,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockingjayne/pseuds/mockingjayne
Summary: A collection of Bawson one shots.
Relationships: Ginny Baker & Mike Lawson, Ginny Baker/Mike Lawson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

Nothing about this was a good idea, but in the moment with Mike, Ginny couldn't bring herself to care.

She dips her head slightly, her curls splashing over her face to cover the glimmer currently dancing across her eyes, as she steps forward, closing the distance between her and the future she was willingly choosing in one small movement.

He reaches out for her then, settling his hands firmly on her hips. The hesitation from earlier at the bar long since dissipating, cautious trepidation thrown out in favor of firm decision, as her lips brush against his own. She finds the course hair of his beard rubbing against her cheek in a way that has her moaning into his mouth, only spurring him on further, pulling her closer. 

They’d both known the tension had been there, present in every heated argument, every sarcastic back and forth - acting more like foreplay than banter - the silent looks of encouragement that came to mean more, but as they stand in the doorway of her hotel room, exposed to any guest that come their way, they can’t help but feel that this, them, was always an inevitable thing, phone call be damned.


	2. Chapter 2

Let's just say Mike and Ginny were experiencing a couple's squabble, but that doesn't mean it should translate on the field.

Or so he thought.

They’d discussed this the first morning after - the sun shining in through her curtains, creating a glow that traveled down her shoulder to the small of her waste, the delicate rays of light cascading off her causing Mike to become transfixed on the material of sheet hanging loosely on her hips. 

She’d peeked through her lashes to find him staring at her, and soon the aftermath of their decision to take things further came crashing down around them, which had ultimately ended with a pinky promise (her giddy suggestion, not his) that they’d keep things a secret and that what happened off the field, stayed off the field.

That was until a little argument that had started from nothing (literally, he couldn’t even remember what had started it) had snowballed into the ball of anger and frustration that was Ginny Baker, as she stared down at him from the mound. Some couples vow to never go to bed angry, Mike thinks maybe they should implement the never go on the field angry rule for them, because as she wipes the sweat off her top lip with slitted eyes, shaking off another one of his calls, he can’t help but roll his eyes with a grunt behind his mask.

His gaze settles on her again, as she licks her lips, an unintentional tease of what he’d been missing since their argument started, and he finds himself readjusting his stance with the strain of tension, his knees screaming in protest.

God, she was going to be the death of him, but what a way to go.


	3. Chapter 3

"I just wanted to tell you, at least once."

His whispered _I love you_ , floating in the air of the stale aired bus, where Ginny’s head rested against his shoulder after a long game.

He’d long since learned that she slept like a log - when she was out, she was out, and currently she was curled up against him like her own personal pillow, hand gripping his pullover, mouth slightly ajar, a look he’d become accustomed to after nearly every away game.

Months of helping her with her physical therapy, getting her game ready had paid off, and she’d all but run into his arms after her first win back - a _thank you_ grazing the shell of his ear, as she hugged him, leading a rush of feelings he’d been attempting to bury deep, deep down since spending so much time with her, instead dredged up to the forefront of his mind with one simple act, spilling over at the first opportunity.

Just once, declaring out loud, albeit a whisper, the love he had for this woman who challenged him with questions that only she had the answers to - a missing puzzle piece in a life spent searching for something that felt right - it was her.


	4. Chapter 4

His breath hitches, as she finally descends the stairs - promising to have been ready almost an hour ago - he’d planted himself on the couch with a beer and ESPN playing in the background - checking his watch, he was just about to call up to her, just to check she was actually getting ready, when he heard the distinct sound of heels on the stairs.

Looking up he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, Ginny always looked great, whether she was lounging in her sweats with effortless beauty, decked out in workout gear, sweat covering her (he particularly liked that one), in her uniform with intense concentration, or on those rare occasions they had an event to go to, in a dress that nearly killed him - red, black, green, he thought he’d seen it all - all the facets of his girlfriend, and he loved them all…but this…this was…downright sinful.

There before him was Ginny in a black dress, this he was sure, but it was sheer and beaded, and hugged her in all the right places - her hair pulled back in a stylish ponytail, some sort of red, damned if he knew, highlighting her eyes - she looked…gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

He stands to meet her at the bottom of the stairs as she searches through her tiny purse. 

“Hey, do you think I could sneak a snack into this purse, it’s small but I think I could fit…” she starts and stops short when she sees his jaw nearly dropped to the floor, a smoldering look cast her way, scanning over the completely sheer bottom of her dress.

“You’re gonna catch flies with that open mouth,” she teases, patting his smooth face, leaving him with a smile, still unused to her skin on his newly shaved face.

“You are trying to kill me,” he says as he pulls her closer, the beads pressing into his stomach, and she leans in, her lips whispering against the shell of his ear.

“Wait ‘til you see what’s underneath the dress,” she teases, a groan escaping from his mouth and landing somewhere along the lace adorning her neck.

“Come on, babe, we’re gonna be late,” she says, pulling on his arm and looking back at him with a devilish grin and a wink.

“You really are going to kill me.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ginny looked up when Mike walked into the club house, "Do you know why the hell there's a cat in here?"

A wicked grin appears on his face, and she holds up her hand to stop the dirty comment she knows is coming, “You know what, I don’t want to know.” 

He steps dangerously close to her, grin still in place, not foiled at all by her hand, now planted firmly on his chest. 

“Come on, Baker, you really don’t want to know why there’s a cat in there?” he teases, his breath tickling her face, earning him what only could only be described as a purr coming from Ginny’s throat, as her eyes dip closed, the proximity of their closeness invading her senses, causing her to lean closer by the second, as he continues to trace his nose along the long of her neck, goosebumps appearing upon her, with a barely there mewl, once again escaping from her.

And then an actual meow, rather loud and persistent comes from the closed door behind them, and his head whips up as her eyes snap open.

“Wait, there’s really a cat in the clubhouse?”


	6. Chapter 6

"Who else... who else could I want when there's you?!"

He balks at her confession, his eyes going wide at the idea of her actually…wanting him, having long since given up the hopeful notion that she felt the same, despite the way she’d leaned in just as much, if not more, to their almost kiss, what felt like forever ago. He’d since then buried those feelings, especially since her injury, vowing to focus on being just her teammate, her mentor, a friend that was there for her, and it was working, they’d become closer than before, but always bordering on just a little too close. An illusion that had been shattered when pap pics of her out with Noah, once again surfaced, much to the chagrin of the entire club house, endlessly teasing her that Wonder Boy was back.

“I saw the pictures, Ginny, we all did,” he throws back at her with a bit more bite than she had been expecting - the sting hitting her in the chest before recovering with a shake of her head, and a bitter laugh.

“I was breaking up with him, for good - you know, not all us millennials use the tactful text breakup, old man,” she says with a teasing lilt to her voice, a smile that suggests he’d likely made an ass out of himself…again.

“So…” he starts, but is quickly met with her lips crashing down on his, her hand wrapped around his neck, pulling him down, and his last thought silenced with the physical confirmation she was supplying him with.


	7. Chapter 7

Ginny and Mike were so relieved to finally be in a relationship, they hadn't even thought about how to tell the Padres, or how the team would react.

But they were about to quickly find out.

“Quit laughing, Lawson! This is serious.” She gave him her best stern face, as she scrolled down, refreshing the page on her twitter. “Oh god, it’s already got 828 retweets and it’s only been out two minutes!” She bites her bottom lip, attempting to refresh again, as Mike continues rummaging around in the kitchen, a smile adorning his bearded face.

“Relax, Baker, it was going to come out eventually. It’s almost better this way, now we don’t have to worry about being caught anymore,” he says as he stirs the homemade sauce for the boiling pasta, sleeves rolled up, revealing the flex of his forearm with every movement of the spoon, the kind of action that would’ve distracted Ginny had it been any other night - instead, it goes unnoticed, as she continues to worry her bottom lip.

“Mike…” she whispers out, panicked, as reality comes crashing down on her, and he instantly stops stirring, looking up into her teary eyes, before coming around the counter to wrap her up in his arms. She instantly buries her face in his shirt, breathing in his scent. His warmth comforting her in a way only he could provide.

“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs into her hair, placing a kiss on top of her head, before pulling back slightly to see her face. “Let me see the pictures,” he asks, grabbing the phone from her.

“Hey, at least they got my good side,” he says with a wink.

“I didn’t realize you had a bad side,” she teases back with a watery smile.

“We’re gonna be okay, Gin. I got your back,” and she gives a feeble nod, because with everything up in the air, that’s the one thing she’s sure of, that they have each other.


	8. Chapter 8

So maybe answering the door with a baseball bat in hand wasn't the right way to go about the situation, but Mike loved his not-so-little girl too much.

The young boy’s face tenses as Mike clenches the bat a little tighter, his bearded face only adding to the mystery of just what he was capable of, and an audible gulp could be heard from the poor boy, the one who dared to date his daughter.

“Mike, what the hell?” Ginny laughs, coming up behind him, lowering the bat from his hands. “Jared, hi. I’m Mrs. Baker-Lawson, I see you’ve met Mr. Lawson. His bark’s worse than his bite,” she says with a wink towards her husband.

“You better not hurt her,” Mike grunts, cutting all pleasantries and getting right to the point.

Ginny cringes, “What he meant to say was, ‘I hope you have a good time, drive safely.’” She nudges Mike in the ribs and he flinches like she’d actually hurt him.

Jared stands nervously, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans as Mike eyes the boy for any sudden movements. It’s then that Kaia comes bouncing down the stares, bright smile and matching dimples like her mother, and with just as much exuberance, literal sunshine, as she squeezes past her parents.

“Bye, Daddy,” she says with a kiss to his cheek.

“Kaia…,” he warns.

“I love you! Bye, Mom!” she says as she grabs Jared’s hand and leads him to his car.

“Relax, old man. It’s just a date. They’re only sixteen.”

He groans. “That’s exactly my point, I remember being a sixteen year old boy,” he says through gritted teeth.

“And I remember being a sixteen year old girl, and you always say she’s a little Ginny. She’s fine, she can take care of herself. She’s not a baby anymore.”

She turns to go into the house, grabbing Mike’s hand, just like Kaia had done with her date, leading her pouting husband to the couch. “Come on, you can come show me some teenage Mike Lawson moves,” she taunts, trying to cheer him up.

“She’s still my baby,” he mutters.


	9. Chapter 9

"Did you just throw a snowball at me?"

The face of innocence hides her hands behind her back, her blue coat standing out in the winter wonderland surrounding them, but her white beanie has a fluffy ball at the top that resembles the snowball she’d just sent flying at him. She was absolutely adorable, even when he had melted snow dripping from his neck, all the way down his back like an icy river.

He puts on his best angry face, but she knows him too well, she raises an eyebrow in a challenge, and he jogs up to her, the shoes he’d thrown on crunching the snow as he goes. She takes off, a dimpled smile in tow, but she doesn’t make too much of an effort because before long he’s got her around the waist, lifting her from the ground, and she’s howling with laughter.

“Mike, your back,” she tries to warn him, always worrying about him. Heeding the suggestion, he lowers to his knees with a groan, snow overtaking them like glitter, sticking to every part of them, as she lays on her back, him overtop of her. She stretches her arms out, slowing making a snow angel, and he watches above her, his gaze warm enough to melt everything around them, his actual angel, smiling up at him, eyes closed, completely blissed out in the cold weather.

“You mad?” she asks, peeking out from one eye, his grey sweatpants completely soaked from the snow, every part of him freezing to what he feels is certain death, but he shakes his head. Leaning down, he gently kisses her, quick, like a habit, but she grabs ahold of him, her cold hands stinging his face, before bringing her nose against his own, softly moving it back and forth.

“Eskimo kiss,” she claims with a grin.

And suddenly he’s no longer cold.


	10. Chapter 10

The way Mike looked at her sometimes...

You’d think he wasn’t in public, on full display, with the absolute hearts in his eyes when she takes an extra long sip of the grape soda, and he raises his eyebrows, and her cheeks puff out like a five year old before she swallows, or when they go out to eat, and she adamantly declares, “no cilantro,” with a polite, threatening smile at the waitress as she underlines the specification again before leaving, and she turns to him with a _“What?”_ and he just shakes his head with a laugh.

The long stares were nothing new, they’d been happening for quite a while as he got to know her and all her strange habits that he found so damn endearing. But now, now he knew her, every inch of her, and the stare had morphed from a general gaze of amazement to one of familiarity, warmth, and love.

She peeks through her lashes, the feeling of his stare warming her more than the morning sun shining through the window. 

“You’re doing it again,” she warns with a teasing lilt, and she rolls to her back, taking most of the sheet with her.

“I could be sleeping,” he says, completely giving away that he is not in fact sleeping.

“I can feel you…” she gets out, before his arm is pulling her from the waist, closer to him, a short laugh escaping her.

“Oh yeah? I’m hoping so,” he teases, his beard rubbing against her neck, as he lays kisses along her, burying his face in the juncture of her collarbone.

A breathy _“Dirty”_ can be heard before she falls silent, all her focus on the movement of Mike’s lips on her. The gaze momentarily lost, as their eyes close.

“Mike,” she whispers, and he pauses, lifting his head to look at her, pure admiration, love radiating from him.

But for as much as everyone talks about the way Mike looks at her, the hooded gaze reflecting back at him everything that he felt, Ginny was just as guilty.


	11. Chapter 11

"I love you, you idiot that's why!" Ginny yelled.

To be fair, when had stalked to the kitchen, groaning, “What have I done to deserve this?” he hadn’t expected Ginny to actually hear him, let alone respond.

He rummages through the pantry, trying to find her request - lately they’d been getting crazier and crazier, and he’d been patient, getting up in the middle of the night to find her whatever she’d been craving at that moment. He’d done it without complaint and even with a smile, albeit in a very tired smile.

But today, he’d been dragging. He’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed, literally, because Ginny had apparently needed the other side because it was more “comfortable.” And he had to admit, she did look cute curled up in the dent of the mattress on his side, his large t-shirt wrapped around her, the threadbare material strained by their growing child.

However, after a grueling practice, where every part of his body screamed in protest, not even an ice bath could soothe his aching bones, and he’d come home to the immediate request from Ginny, from the couch, asking for chips and salsa, before he could even take his shoes off, or rather, see her face.

Rounding the couch, he places the tortilla chips on her lap, and she glances up at him with a dimpled smile, this time wrapped in one of his pullovers. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” And she’s opening the bag before he can even sit down, her protruding stomach catching all the crumbs from her crunching.

He gently moves her feet to rest on his lap, and immediately starts massaging them, causing her to dip her head back with a loud moan.

“Have I told you lately how much I love you?” she asks, bringing her head up, brown eyes smiling at him.

“I think you might have yelled something like that…” he teases.

“Because I do,” she declares.

“I know,” he assures her, leaning over to place a sweet kiss on her stomach, her hand moving away from her bag of chips to run through his hair. “I love you both.”

Bad mood no more.


	12. Chapter 12

_"With all that am and with all that I have, I Mike Lawson promise to love you for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health..."_

Ginny gasps from the kitchen, using her ridiculous fuzzy socks to shuffle across the floor into the living room with a full can of grape soda balancing in her already loaded up hands with snacks.

“Are you watching it without me!?” She yells, dumping all the food onto the table and turning back to glare at Mike.

“I would never…” he teases, and she stomps up to him, standing in between his legs with a glare.

“Just sit down, already,” pulling her down onto him, all limbs and a giant white sweater surrounding him, and what can only be described as a hoarse giggle escaping from her with a _oomph_. “Who needs snacks for everything we watch anyway,” he playfully mutters with an air of truth.

“Me,” she declares, settling beside him, head tucked onto his shoulder, hand gripping his shirt, much like how she sleeps on the bus, her rings glittering in the light of the fire.

“You ready now,” he says, twisting the remote back and forth like the last few times, right before he pressed play, when she’d decided she needed to pee or put on warmer socks or that they needed snacks.

“I am,” she nods against him.

“Good, because we’re just getting to the good part,” he says with a wink.

“You would think the kiss was the best part,” and he can feel her rolling her eyes.

“No, not the kiss. The part where you become my wife,” he says in complete seriousness.

“Marshmallows! That’s what I forgot!” She gets up and disappears behind the couch to get, yet another, snack.

Then her head pops up over the couch.

“Forget something?” He asks.

“Yep,” she says and leans over, her entire weight balancing on the back of the couch, as she tips in to capture his lips in a sweet kiss. “That was the best part, husband.”

“This kiss wasn’t bad either.”


	13. Chapter 13

"So, the pictures leaked were from Davis, the cardinals catcher you started a brawl with, who you dated, and when I asked you about it you said you _'played together'_ and that was it. Do I have that right?"

She gives a nod, a frown forming on her lips before bringing the collar of her jacket up to her mouth, rubbing back and forth, almost like a security blanket, shrouding herself from potential pain.

He turns, staring a hole into the back of the guy’s head, their game having ended several hours ago, but the information just now coming to light, the anger pulsing so hard through him that he can hear it. He moves to take a step, his hands clenched into fists, about to give this guy a piece of his mind, when her arms reaches out to stop him, gripping him tightly.

“Mike,” she says, her voice full of pleading, “let it go.”

He grinds his teeth, but his fists slowly unfold upon her touch.

“I hate that he hurt you,” he groans, as if her emotional pain physically tortures him.

“Well that’s why I’m dating you and not him anymore,”she explains with a smile, her thumb rubbing back and forth on his arm, soothing his anger from him, drawing his attention back to her, as if it ever really left.

Directing him down the sidewalk, her arm now linked into his, her head resting on his shoulder, burying her face in his warm coat.

“Dick,” he mutters with one last glance back at him.

That earns him a laugh. “He’s got nothing on you, old man.”

“I hope that’s a stellar review on my size and not my being an ass,” he teases, knowing full well what she meant.

“Hmm, I guess we’ll see tonight, huh?”


	14. Chapter 14

"So, there's this cute beagle puppy up for adoption..."

Mike casually blurts out at breakfast - Ginny’s plate is piled high with every assortment of food you could imagine, but mostly eggs. Lots and lots of eggs. He’d joined her that morning so he could accompany her to physical therapy, her arm hanging in a sling, while she messily shovels her food into her mouth, her left hand clumsily maneuvering the fork.

“Hmm,” she gets out between bites, not really paying attention, all her nerves and focus on devouring everything in sight, a sort of eat your feelings type thing he would’ve assumed if he hadn’t witnessed a meal with her before.

“I was thinking we could stop by after your appointment, check her out,” he suggests, waiting for a response. “Ginny…?”

She looks up, her mouth full of bacon. “Wait, what? You want me to go with you to check out who?” an incredulous look painted on her face, and almost a tad bit of jealousy if he could read her eyes right, and he liked to think he could.

He leans back in his chair, staring at her mid-bite, a smile forming on his face, as she wiggles in her seat, to get closer to the table, to him, not willing or able to use both hands to scoot her chair.

“You are not even listening to me. I’m hurt,” he feigns. “You made me stop giving speeches and now you won’t even listen to me at the breakfast table,” he mocks, and with a roll of her eyes, he’s laughing.

“A dog, Baker. I want you to come look at a dog with me.”

She swallows her bite. “You’re getting a dog?”

He shrugs, moving to rub his hand through his beard, only to find bare skin. A move Ginny still hasn’t forgiven him for. “I could use the company.”

“What? I’m not enough for you,” she teases with a wink, as she goes back to shoveling food into her mouth.

“Oh, you’re plenty, but when I got home…” he trails off.

Ginny bites her lip, not sure what exactly he’s suggesting or if it’s even any of her business to assume what he’s suggesting.

“Umm, what about Rachel?” she treads carefully, stilling her face to not give her hopefulness away.

He shakes his head. “Didn’t work out,” he casually says. “This time for good,” and the look he gives Ginny has her squirming in her seat, her face impassive, but her body giving her away.

“Oh,” is all she says. “So you’re getting a dog.”

“I’m getting a dog.”


	15. Chapter 15

She reaches her hand out, running a hand under the bruise already forming, earning a hiss from him - a wince that crinkles his whole face in a myriad of pain.

“It’s not that bad,” he manages to get out, his tough bravado not fooling her in the least.

“Oh really? Because I’m looking at you right now and it looks pretty damn bad,” her teasing tone leaning more towards anger the more she looks at him.

Punching his arm, he winces again. “What the hell was that for?” he tries to glare at her, but he looks more like something from The Walking Dead than the normal grouchy bear she’s used to.

“That was for getting yourself hurt over something stupid,” she rises to go to the kitchen, rummaging around in his freezer for something she can use. “Idiots, all of them,” she mutters to herself, as she grabs an ice pack and returning to his bruised form on the couch.

She tosses the bag onto his lap, and he jumps at it’s cold contact, before reluctantly picking the offending object up, debating which part of him needs it the most, before bringing it rest against his eye.

“You,” he gets out before leaning his head back, letting the pack rest on his face.

She doesn’t question him, just looks on, waiting for him to explain. He gives out a loud sigh, before leaning back, the pack falling off of him, catching its free fall before it lands in his lap.

“The comment was about you,” and he finds his hands forming into fists again, the pain stinging at him.

“I know, I was there,” she says with an eye roll, reaching to grab the ice pack, and noticing for the first time his knuckles, bruised and bloody.

“Yeah, so it wasn’t something stupid,” he gently tries to explain, as she straightens his hand, gripping his fingers, as her callused thumb traces up and over his red knuckles.

Looking up at him with concern, he swears a flash of gratitude lingers behind those brown eyes. 

“I don’t need you to fight my battles,” she whispers, her hand still gripping tightly at his fingers, and he squeezes against her palm, three soft pressure filled grips, in succession, that she’s not even sure he knows he’s doing, but it earns him a smile.

“I know you don’t need me, but you can let me help every once in a while,” he tries to reason with a grin that looks more like a grimace.

She nods, knowing that this particular road to hell was paved with the best of intentions.

“Sure, just next time, you might want to duck or something instead of using your face as a punching bag,” a teasing smile bringing out her dimples, as she ducks her head behind a shield of curls, and brings the ice pack down to his hand.

“I try to do the right thing and this is the thanks I get,” he lets out with a gruff laugh that’s quickly cut off with a flinch, his face unhappy with his movement.

“Oh, I’m sorry, _my hero.”_


	16. Chapter 16

"I really want us to start trying for a baby," Ginny says while cuddling with Mike watching TV.

It’s not the first time he’s heard this idea, in fact ever since he put on a ring on her finger, the rumors had begun about Ginny being pregnant. Their possible, inevitable child was something that was whispered about in every press conference she did, the baited breath that she was going to announce she was pregnant. Only for them to be disappointed when her talking points were actually about the game. _Sexist assholes_.

Any picture that was taken of her, whether she was in a skin tight dress or a baggy sweatshirt, angles were analyzed, her stomach constantly being compared to a version of her that looked the exact same as a couple of years ago. The scrutiny never ending over whether the hoodie was hiding something or she’d simply slipped out in one of his pieces of clothing.

But it didn’t end with just media and fan speculation. No, their friends and teammates got in on the action too. Anytime Ginny chose a grape soda over wine, Evelyn squealed like _this was it_. Except this wasn’t it, she was simply choosing the child’s version of grape consumption over the adult one. No further explanation needed (except maybe how she could drink that nasty shit).

 _“When? When? When?”_ that’s all he heard, and while he wanted kids, this he knew, he also knew that the _when_ in question was up to Ginny. They’d talked about it before, the idea of a baby that was half him, half her. But it was just future talk, someday, someday…maybe.

But this, now, this was…now.

She’s tucked into his side, her eyelashes tickling his arm, she’s so close. The soft murmur of her declaration into his bicep still vibrating through him.

He looks down at her, big brown eyes looking up at him, hopefulness reflecting back at him. And then he’s tossing the iPad onto the nightstand, and rolls on top of her with a growl, and she’s hoarsely laughing at his eagerness.

“Now?” he teases, his beard rubbing against her neck, as he mutters into her pulse point.

She just nods, further encouraging. “On one condition,” she warns, and he lifts his head to look at her, willing to give her whatever she wants. “Absolutely no jokes about a bun in the oven and me being a baker,” her eyebrow raised at her stipulation, both teasing and oh so serious.

“Done,” he says with a bark of laughter, and then leans in impossibly close, his lips resuming their path down the column of her neck. “You’re not a Baker anymore,” his breath leaving a cool feeling over his wet kisses.

A moan escapes her, as she shakes her head. “Baker-Lawson.”


	17. Chapter 17

"'I Can't Help Falling In Love With You', that's what you picked as our wedding song." Ginny says with tears in her eyes.

She’s standing so impossibly close to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her newly placed ring shimmering in the twinkling lights hanging from the ceiling, the feel of his hands on the small of her back, bringing her closer still. His fingers, shaky earlier, now still, and radiating the heat she feels between them on the fine white lace adorning her, serving as the only barrier, and only just that, outlining her delicate but toned back with a cutout that dips tastefully low, enough to tease Mike in all the right ways.

When she’d asked him what he wanted for their wedding months ago, he’d assured her that she was free to do as she pleased, just the fact that he got to marry her was enough for him (which had earned him a playful hit, and a roll of the eyes with how cheesy he was being), a sincere smile all that he offered unless asked specifically. She’d left most of the details up to Evelyn, but the one thing Mike had insisted upon was the music. Their first song. He claimed to have the perfect one, and wanted to surprise her with it.

She’d teased, begged, even resorted to attempted trickery to get the answer out of him, but he’d pursed his lips with a knowing smile and refused.

Now, as she stood pressed up against him, swaying softly with her husband, the melodic waves of the music play for them, he lowers his mouth, his breath tickling the hollow of her ear, as he ever so softly sings along with the lyrics.

“Some things are meant to be,” he whispers, and she visibly shivers, the timber of his voice vibrating through her, and she buries her face in his neck, her grip around his neck becoming tighter, as he traces small circles against her back with his fingertips.

“For I can’t help falling in love,” he utters in her ear, and she gives a breathy laugh.

“You’re so off-key,” she teases. “But I like it,” she sighs into him.

“With you,” he finishes, continuing to sway as the song continues. “No worse than you, at least you know what song I’m singing,” and she can feel the smile with the movement of his beard against her.

“You always know what I’m humming,” she claims, and he can’t deny her, because he knows, he’s always known.

“Hmm,” he hums. “Just wait until you hear the next song,” and she pulls back, making him look at her. “Fireworks,” he says with a wink. And she laughs, a dimpled smile making its way to him. The eyes of their family and friends lost on them, completely entranced in each other. Meant to be.


	18. Chapter 18

"DON'T YOU EVER PUT YOUR HANDS ON GINNY AGAIN OR YOU'LL REGRET IT!"

He’s seeing red before his brain can even properly comprehend what he’s doing - his feet flying to her side, fists clenched and ready to snap this twig of a man in half.

Noah’s eyes go wide, and his argument with Ginny immediately stops, removing his hands from her and backing away, his hands held up in surrender, not wanting to start a fight with the bull standing in front of him, guarding Ginny from him, scuffing his foot and ready to charge at the first sign of weakness.

Mike’s bristling, the need to protect her, her arm hanging in its sling, and the anger that’s coming off of him in waves, he doesn’t even recognize the crowd of their teammates forming around him, Ginny’s pleas growing louder, as her good hand grabs his arm.

“STOP,” she yells, and his glazed eyes clear, her voice cutting through the rage haze he’d created, and he takes in his surroundings, a tinge of red heating up his face, this time with embarrassment rather than anger, but the need to make sure she’s okay still there.

He looks over at her, scanning her body for any sign of damage, aside from the already injured arm.

“I’m fine,” she assures him, giving him a knowing nod, the kind that signaled, _she had this_.

“But he…” starts, but quickly closes his mouth, turning back toward Noah, shooting daggers at the man.

“Total misunderstanding,” the guy gets out, his hands still held in the air, but a cocky attitude like he’d just been pardoned by the Queen herself exudes from him.

“I got this,” she levels with him, her hand having never left his arm, a move that doesn’t go unnoticed by either Mike, Noah, or the growing crowd around them.

“Maybe I should go,” Noah says, and Ginny bows her head and jerks her head to the side, dismissing him. The struggle to get out with the intimidating stares of way too many men with bats held around him enough to have him fleeing.

“I had it under control,” she seethes under her breath at Mike, dropping her hand from him, the anger now rolling off of her. “I don’t need you fighting my battles.”

“Ginny,” he tries, reaching out for her, trying to keep contact, but she shakes him off, causing Mike to flinch, unused to her rejecting him off the field, as well.

“We made our choice,” she angrily fumes, before pushing her way from the crowd out the door, her injured wing tucked tightly against her body, shielding her from anymore pelts to her armor.

“I know,” he whispers, his head bowed, as the crowd disperses, leaving him to his thoughts, alone.


	19. Chapter 19

_"I love you."_

Her eyes flutter open, the soft pressure on her hand alerting her awake, but the fog refuses to clear as the meds she was given try to bring her further under. She’d tried to refuse them, but after some coaxing, she’d agreed, and floated off in the land of no pain, succumbing to sleep.

Her limbs feel both so heavy and light as a feather, but the pressure, it’s warm and comforting. Small whispers washing over her, the words are jumbled, but fragments she’s catching. But one seems clear. 

_I love you._

The declaration sinks into her, settling into the pit of her stomach in the form of butterflies, spreading their wings and landing at base of her heart. The gruff voice, its timber something familiar, one she was used to hearing, the cadence, falling in pitch with warnings of crossing a line she didn’t remember drawing in the first place.

She fights to consciousness, a hooded, glazed look fighting its way through the blurred eyelashes to find Mike, hair sticking up in every direction, bags under his worn eyes, disheveled clothing, and her hand gripped in his own, like it was his lifeline.

Moving to speak, her mouth runs dry, and nothing but a gasp of a squeak comes out, but it’s enough. It has him whipping his head up to her face, and a quirk of the mouth on her part, causes him to stand, dropping her hand with a groan to get a better look at her.

“Gin,” he utters, almost as a question, the idea of her being awake and okay something he’s both thankful and quizzical about.

She swallows, trying to get her bearings. “People are gonna think you’re senile, old man, if you keep talking to yourself like that,” she warns with a teasing a lilt.

A smile forms on his bearded face, a hoarse laugh erupting with a shake of his head, relief washing over him.

“I was talking to you,” he gets out, and realization washes over her, the admission, the declaration she’d heard so clearly in the fog…that was for her.

She nods, a knowing grin.

“Are you in any pain?” he asks, concern still written all over him.

She shakes her head, reaching out with a heavy hand, her good hand, and laces their fingers together. A floating smile, suspending her mind, the knowledge of his feelings alleviating her pain more so than the meds.

“Nope, I’m good.”


	20. Chapter 20

"Move in with me Baker..."

Ginny’s long, bare legs are spread out on the bed, iPad placed in between them, her face aglow as the stats scroll across the screen. She looks up at the sound of his voice, her loose curls framing her confused face, as she pulls her focus to place her gaze on the shirtless man standing in front of her. She cocks her head, lowering her shoulder, allowing the large t-shirt she’s wearing to dip down, exposing her collarbone to him.

His eyes catch the dip of her clothing, eyes tracing the slender angle of her neck down to where the shirt hangs precariously off of her. Mike’s transfixed, rivulets of water dripping down his chest, having been missed by the towel he’d used to dry himself, now hanging off his hips. Her tongue peeks out, momentarily, to wet her lips, and his eyes flicker up to catch the movement.

She shakes her head with laughter, turning to place the tablet on the nightstand, the back of her large t-shirt exposed to him - his name emblazoned across her from shoulder blade to blade, not so much claiming her as his own, as sharing a piece of him that he’d only dreamed she’d one day accept. 

But there she was, sitting pretty in their bed, wearing clothes she’d long since claimed as her own. She’s smiling at him now, bookended by dimples so deep she leaves no uncertainty about her level of happiness - a true, genuine smile, the kind she reserves only for him.

“What’d you say, old man?” she repeats, knowing that she’s somehow distracted him, but experiencing a mutual attraction to his state that they’re pulling themselves out of a stupor that finds them periodically throughout the day - caught up in each other.

He stumbles over his words, the assertion from just moments ago having left him in favor of distraction. As he’d run his hand over the clothes in his dresser, searching for something to wear, he’d noticed, oddly for the first time, that their clothes were intermixed. Turning only to find her swathed in what used to be his shirt, and pulling on a pair of socks that were definitely his.

“Move in with me, Gin,” he’s saying again with ease. Positive, without a doubt that he no longer wants their things intermixed, but rather a what’s mine is yours, entangled with a wonderment of where one ended and the other began. A level of permanency he’d only longed for before, but never felt secure enough to hold onto. He wasn’t going to fuck this one up.

She shrugs, the shirt lowering even further, tilting her head, a slanted smile revealing itself.

“I kinda thought I already had.”


	21. Chapter 21

"Merry Christmas Old Man!"

She practically sings as she bounds into his house, Santa hat swaying on her head, a six pack in hand. Her cheery bounce present in every step as she skips to the couch. 

“So what are we watching tonight,” she asks, having been promised a movie night.

“A Christmas Story,” he casually says, reaching for the remote.

She settles a safe distance from him, legs shoot out to rest on the coffee table. “Hmm, never seen it,” she declares, taking a swig from her beer.

His mouth drops. “You’ve never seen A Christmas Story? ‘You’ll shoot your eye out! You’ll shoot your eye out!’” he gruffly sings, his voice almost cracking, attempting to make it high pitched and teasing.

She shakes her head. “Nope,” she says with a pop of her lips.

“How is that even possible,” he asks, shock written all over his face.

“Because I’m not as old as dirt,” she teases with a grin.

 _“Never seen A Christmas Story,”_ he mutters to himself, settling further into the couch and pressing play. “Prepare to discover your new favorite holiday movie, Baker.”

xxxxxx

_“The soft glow of electric sex…”_

The rumble of laughter from his chest bounces her head, as he glances down to see her reaction, only to find her eyes closed.

“You cannot be asleep already, this is a classic!” he bellows. Her eyes sleepily open, taking in her surroundings, her head snuggled into his chest.

She backs away, slowly, as to not alert him of the surprise of having landed so close to him in her drowsiness. It wasn’t the first time she’d fallen asleep on him, literally, but the setting felt more intimate being in his house as opposed to a bus after a game.

“You’re a classic,” she weakly shoots back, and he shakes his head at her lame attempt at an insult.

“Come on, you’re missing the best parts,” he argues, wrapping his arm around her, playing it off as rough housing, as her Santa hat falls lower on her face, almost covering her eyes.

“Hey, watch the hat, buddy,” she warns, pushing it back into place.

“Sorry, sorry,” he holds his hands up in surrender. “I’ll be good.”

“I really should be heading back,” she reluctantly counters, standing up and stretching, her sweater riding up to reveal a sliver of skin that doesn’t go unnoticed by Mike, before lowering her arms with a yawn.

He reaches out, his hand wrapping around her own, a gentle tug to pull her back down next to him. “Five more minutes,” he all but begs. “I won’t get to see you for a week,” he says, in a voice that almost sounds like a whine.

“Ugh,” she groans. “Don’t remind me,” the thought of going home for Christmas to face her family sounded about as appealing a root canal. She hadn’t spoken to her brother since she’d sent him away for stealing, not even her injury reason enough to mend things.

She pulls the sleeves of her sweater down, burying her hands in a nervous habit, before Mike places his hands atop of her’s, stilling her. Her eyes focus on his large hand covering both of her’s, this thumb worming its way underneath the sweater sleeve, rubbing slow circles against her skin.

“It won’t be that bad,” he tries to assuage her hesitancy over the upcoming trip, soaking up her nerves through the pressure of his hand hold.

She nods halfheartedly, the ball on the end of her hat swooshing over her face, as she refuses to shake her gaze from their hands. Her eyes tracing over the pattern he moves in figure eights over her, mesmerized.

“Come with me,” an involuntarily whisper escaping from her mouth before she realizes what’s happening. She peeks up at him, eyes wide with surprise at her own admission.

“Okay,” he’s saying before she can take it back.

“Yeah?” she asks, giving him an out, a chance to run for the hills before she drags him across the country.

“Yeah,” he definitively answers with a gentle squeeze to her hand. “Merry Christmas, Ginny.”

Her real name alerting her to the sentiment surrounding the exchange, his willingness to go with her, to be her the best gift he could’ve given her.

“Merry Christmas, Mike.”


	22. Chapter 22

"You're my secret Santa?"

Omar nods at her, a small blush heating up his face. She continues to stare down at the present, her mouth agape at the picture looking back at her in the frame.

“Excuse me,” she blurts out, bypassing her secret Santa, as she stomps through Blip’s house, furiously searching each crowded room filled with laughter and smiles, before finding her target. 

There, in the kitchen, stood Mike, his back facing her, in a blue sweater that seemed to hug him in all the right ways. She stops behind him, contemplating punching him in the back or just laying into him verbally.

Blip sees her first, warning his buddy. “There’s one angry looking elf behind you.”

She narrows her eyes at his comment, but it has Mike turning around, and the sight has her stepping back, eyes wide, and hand moving to cover her mouth in shock.

A shit eating grin spreads across his face. “What’s wrong? I thought you weren’t gonna miss it?” he teases her.

Dropping her hand she tries to steady away her emotion but she’s too out of sorts. And this time she does punch him, in the arm.

“You really did it? You shaved off your beard?”

He runs his hand over his smooth face, making him look five years younger, she must admit. But at the same time she can’t help the almost pout that comes to her lips. And he doesn’t miss that. 

Leaning forward, he hovers by her ear so only she can hear over the loud music. “What? Sad you missed the chance for a kiss under the mistletoe with the beard?”

She steps back from him, earning him around light punch to the arm. “You’re disgusting,” she claims with a shake of her head, and then turning to leave.

But he’s quick for someone with bad knees, because before she knows it, he’s standing in front of her, having stopped her before she could leave the room.

“I’m sorry. I’ll grow it back. I just needed a little change,” and she hangs her head with that, her pony tail coming to rest against the side of her face. His hand moves to push it out of her way, his thumb tracing the shimmering highlight of her cheekbone.

His eyebrows move, gesturing for her to look up, and there above them in the doorway is the mistletoe he’d mentioned earlier.

She jokingly shakes her head, “Hmm, sorry. I only kiss guys with beards. New policy.”

He leans in closer, his breath fanning out over her, a hint of peppermint lingering between them.

“How about I kiss you now, and grow the beard later,” he tries to argue, the idea of shaving seeming less and less like a good idea the more she resists his smooth face.

“Everyone’s watching,” she whispers, but her eyes remain glued to his lips, the first time she’s really seen them without the hindrance of his hair.

“It’s just mistletoe,” he promises, the perfect excuse to test the waters without jumping right in. But she knows better, she knows one kiss is a canon ball into the deep end.

“I expect the beard to be back,” she quickly says, before diving into him.


	23. Chapter 23

"We're having a girl Old Man..."

He nods, a goofy smile covering his face.

“You good to drive?” she teases, Mike having run into several pieces of furniture after waking him up to let him know it was time to go. Several expletives had escaped from him, his shin throbbing as he helped her to the car.

“I’m fine, are you okay?” his panic reaching his voice, as he white knuckles the steering wheel, the nervousness leaking out of him at the importance of this night sinks in. He’s going to have a daughter. A little girl, a _baby_ girl rather, that will depend on him for everything. He can’t let her down, _he won’t_.

With a deep breath he turns the ignition. She grabs his hand across the console, her eyes meeting his panicked but excited face in the dark, only the glow of the overhead light illuminating his expression, and the dark glasses he’s wearing, not having had time to put in his contacts.

“You ready?” she asks, stroking his hand with her callused fingers.

He shakily nods. “You?”

“There’s no turning back now,” she says, gripping his hand tighter. Their shared nerves linked, and oddly comforting knowing they had a partner that had vowed to be there for it all.

“Let’s do this,” he says with far more confidence than his facial expression lets on. Her hand steadying his nerves, her other hand rubbing slowly over her round stomach - their little girl alerting them that she’s coming soon.

A comfortable, charged silence hangs between them as he pulls out onto the street. A sharp inhale coming from Ginny as pain slices through her, his large hand crushed in her small one.

His eyes glance back from the road to her pained expression until she lets out of a breath, and collapses back against the seat.

“Bad one?” he hesitantly asks.

“Might want to drive a bit faster, old man, or you’re gonna have to deliver this baby in the car,” she warns.

His eyes widen, and he pushes the gas pedal further down, speed limits be damned.


	24. Chapter 24

"When the hell did her put me on the kitchen counter?" Ginny thought as Mike's lips kissed his way down her throat.

The night had started off innocently enough, just two teammates hanging out. It wasn’t a big deal, Mike and Blip hung out a lot. Hell, her and Blip hung out all the time. It seemed like a safe enough plan: she would come over, they’d watch a movie or something, have a few beers, and bam, night over, normalcy restored.

Except she’d been hungry, stomach growling like a caged animal stuck inside her, or at least that’s what he’d said as he stared in wonder at her tiny stomach through her shirt.

“Feed the beast!” she’d teased, thinking he’d order takeout.

Nope. He’d decided he was going to make her something. In the kitchen. Like from scratch. She didn’t even know how to boil water and this fool was promising an edible meal that he was going to cook on a stove.

So there she’d been, leaning on the counter by him in the kitchen, having surrendered her grape soda that he’d just _happened_ to have in the house (because friends…teammates did that, right?) for the adult stuff. He was stirring something, she had no clue how to begin to identify all the ingredients he’d assembled to put in this pan, but it smelled amazing.

He’d turned towards her, a wooden spoon held out in her direction with some of the sauce on the end. She’d leaned in with a glint in her eye, and slowly, moving her mouth over the spoon, began to taste it.

“Mmm,” she moaned, leaning her head back a bit, and when he’d moved to take the spoon away, she’d grabbed his wrist, going in for a second taste.

“Good?” he’d questioned, his eyes completely dilated, transfixed on her movement, a shuffle of feet at her moan.

She nods, curls bouncing around her. And he steps forward.

She can’t even be sure what happened after that, the thud of the spoon hitting the floor, as their lips crashed together, hands wandering, and before she knew it, she was seated on the counter, the bubbling sauce dangerously close to her.

“Mi…Mike,” she tries to get out, tries to get his attention, and he hesitantly pulls away, his eyes downcast like he’d done something wrong and was about to be chastised. Guilt flooding his face, ready to secure the emotions somewhere deep, and head back to toe the line of appropriate teammate behavior.

“The sauce,” she points, what was once a simmer has turned into bubbling, and the remnants were landing close to her bare leg.

“Right, shit,” he moves from her, quickly turning off the stove. Dinner successfully ruined.

“I thought you said you could cook,” she teases, eyes blown, and staring at him with his hands on his hips, frustrated in every way.

“I can when I don’t have any distractions,” a warm smile spreading across his face.

“Well, if I’m such a distraction…” she warns, jumping off the counter.

“No, no,” he steps closer to her, grabbing her hips. “I welcome the distraction. Who needs to eat?”

And there it is. The growl from the beast, a rumble he swears he feels against his own stomach as they stand so close.

“I do, apparently,” she says with a shrug.

“I’ll order takeout,” he says with a laugh, pulling his phone from his back pocket.

“Chinese, please,” dimpled smile dipping beside him.

He makes the order, knowing exactly what she wants without asking and quickly hangs up.

“Twenty minutes,” he says, sliding his fingers into the belt loops of her shorts.

“I think we could find something to do until then,” the glint from earlier back, as she wraps her arms around his neck, bringing her face close enough to rub against his beard.

“Hmm,” he hums. “Definitely,” leaning down to brush his lips against hers.


	25. Chapter 25

"I know you said we won't talk about this thing between us as long as we're teammates. But I have to say something or my head will explode."

Ginny pauses, setting the 12 pack of grape soda into their cart with her good arm. She leans over the metal contraption, taking a deep breath, settling her nerves, before turning towards him in the middle of the aisle.

“What’s that?” she asks, trepidation written all over her face, sinking further into the oversized hoodie she’d thrown on. Her feet shifting weight from one side to the other, and she moves to adjust the strap on her sling.

They had been spending more time together since her injury, falling into a comfortable place of limbo where they didn’t broach the subject of _them_ , but rather floated above the line of impropriety, practically acting like a couple but framing their label like a pitch, giving the public, their friends and family, a clear view of where they were at, a trick no one was buying. A crossed line they couldn’t quite hide. If they pulled each other too close to the other, the view was skewed, things got blurry.

 _Teammates. Friends._ That’s what they were. Nothing more.

And yet, here he was pulling her impossibly close with his admission, right in the middle of the grocery store, making plausible deniability more impossible by the second, the sway of her shifting body giving him a satisfying grin.

“That shit will kill you,” he points at the cans she’s just placed into the cart. The thing he just had to say, attached to a promise he saw as fair game to joke about.

Relief rushes her face, a heated blush covering her, before playfully slapping his arm.

“Please, like the ten pound package of bacon you just put in there isn’t going to kill you. That is if old age doesn’t take you first,” she teases back, not letting the opportunity pass her.

He points an accusing finger at her with a grin. “Hey, you eat way more bacon than me! That’s more for you than me,” he taunts, moving to push the cart and them further down the aisle.

“Don’t think I don’t see you stealing it off my plate when I’m not looking, old man,” she counters, bumping into his hip as they walk.

“Just trying to make you eat healthier.”

“By eating it yourself? Oh, the sacrifice. I thank you.” 

“Just trying to help,” he beams down at her, met with a reciprocating smile from her. He casually wraps his arm around her, his beard rubbing against her forehead, leaving a tickling feeling that leaves her warm and fuzzy.

 _“Teammates. Friends.”_ She says to herself, the voice becoming fainter, the pitch fading farther and farther from the truth.


	26. Chapter 26

"Oh c'mon Old Man it'll fun..."

She yells from the bathroom, still getting ready for the day, her head peeking out from the doorway for his reaction. “It has the word _fiesta_ in the name, it guarantees a party.”

“Oh yeah, nothing sounds more fun than spending the day having my body being thrown around in a tiny car with sharp turns and your loud screams in my ear,” he explains with a shake of his head, a resounding _no way_.

She rolls her eyes at him, ducking back into the bathroom to finish brushing her teeth, before reappearing. “How is that any different than when you drive us around?” she says with a devilish smile. “Come on, what are we supposed to do then? It’s a big attraction here.”

“Next,” he hints, lounging on the bed of their hotel room.

“Okay, umm,” she tries to wrack her brain for something. “Definitely not whales, I know how you feel about that.”

“Things that big shouldn’t…” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“I know, I know, that’s why I said, _‘definitely not.’_ I swear, old man, you tease me about my cilantro hate, but you have way more aversions than me.”

“You love it,” he peers down from his position on the bed, a smile peeking through his beard.

“I’ve got it! Alcohol. Food. And it’s all in an old brewery. You’ll love it!” she excitedly hops onto the bed, jostling him, as she stumbles across the mattress, balancing herself, his only view her long, long legs extending up into the heavens.

He shrugs. “I guess we have a winner.”

“Finally!” She jumps, his body sinking further into the divot she’s created by standing and repeatedly bouncing. “And it’s near downtown so afterwards we can drive there and I can watch you fall into the river,” she taunts with a hoarse giggle.

He grabs one of her legs, stilling her, brown eyes staring down at him.

“Did _he_ take you there?” he asks, jealousy coloring his face with a heated blush, but the seriousness of the question hangs between them.

She plops down, legs crossed, his hand now tangled in her limbs, resting on her thigh.

“No, he did not,” she assures, placing her hand on his stomach. “We were way too busy for that,” she says with a slight pat, before crawling over him, an audible groan reaching her ears.

“Now come on, I’m gonna take you to the best bakery with the strongest coffee ever - it’ll scare the grumpy out of you,” she says with far too much excitement for someone not fully caffeinated yet.

“You just had coffee,” he points at her empty cup, and she narrows her eyes at him. “But coffee sounds great, lead the way, tour guide.”


	27. Chapter 27

"So of all the players in the MLB, what was it about me that made you put up a poster in your bedroom?"

He runs his fingers over his beard with a conspiratorial grin plastered to his face, leaning back against the booth.

His smug face earning him a french fry flung from her fingers, hitting him square in the chest. A feigned look of hurt greets her, and she’s rolling her eyes with a closed mouth smile, exposing her dimples.

“I really don’t know, I clearly should’ve picked someone else, someone more attractive,” she tries to tease, but his eyebrows raise, a sly smile appearing, and she realizes her mistake.

“I mean, you know, _if_ I had your poster up, and I’m not saying I did…,” she fumbles with her words, her slip of the tongue already out in the open and ripe for prime teasing.

“Aha!” He all but shouts in the crowded restaurant, earning them a few glances from tables around them. “I knew it. So where was it? Above your bed? Did you kiss it every night, wishing it were the real thing?”

His questions are endless and so embarrassing, and she finds herself wanting to sink further into the booth, let the ground swallow her up. Instead she sets her jaw, dipping her fry until a huge glob of ketchup hangs off of it and then takes a bite, acting disinterested in his line of questions.

“Hmm, well, keep talking and you’re gonna be the one stuck with only a Ginny poster left to kiss, wishing it were the real thing,” she counters, and he balks, his mouth closing quickly.

“You wouldn’t…” he tries, but he knows (and she definitely knows) that if the threat turned out to be real, he’d break before she gave in. As stubborn as he was, she was more so. 

She raises an eyebrow, a _dare me_ look if ever there was one.

“You couldn’t resist…this,” he taunts, leaning across the table. “Hell, you’ve been staring at this mug since you were a kid, you’re not gonna stop now.”

And he’s got her there. 

“Yeah, I could actually see your ugly mug when I was a kid, now it’s hidden behind…that,” she points to the beard with a fry.

“You love the beard,” he says with a nod, reaching out to steal one of her fries, and she swats his hand away.

“Mine,” she mouths, and he pretends to lean back and then quickly makes a grab for one.

“This,” she gestures towards him eating her food a smug smirk on his face. “This was definitely not going through my mind when I looked at your poster,” she explains, and while it’s meant to be mock their situation, she can’t help but think about all those times she looked up at his younger self when she was a young girl, that she never could’ve imagined meeting him, let alone ending up where they were.

“It’s so much better than you imagined, isn’t it?” he says, as if reading her mind, a knowing look of pure adoration flickering across his eyes.

She nods, a shy smile on her face. _So much better._


	28. Chapter 28

"Oh my God, Mike," Ginny says as she turns her head to look at him. "Noah's the hacker."

Mike’s eyes go wide, a flash of anger crossing him. “Are you serious?”

“No. That’s how ridiculous you sound,” she deadpans, before turning back around to fiddle with something in her bag, her irritation radiating off of her in waves.

“What do you even know about him, Ginny?” She freezes at the sound of her name, her first name at that, not sure if its his concern or his obvious jealousy that has her seeing red.

She turns on him, digging a long finger into his chest, backing him up slowly with rage, as she rattles off tidbits, one by one.

“I know that he’s kind. I know that he likes me. I know that…”

“He’s not a teammate so you can date him,” he breeches her rant with a snide comment that hits her like a line drive of truth right to the gut.

Her eyes narrow, hurt spreading through her, as she removes her finger from his chest, and retreats. “That’s not fair,” she says with a shake of her head.

He rubs his hands over his face attempting to smooth out the frustration of this argument. “It’s true, though,” he mutters.

She’s looking down, refusing to meet his eyes and reveal just how right he is. Noah’s a good distraction, but that’s it. There’s no future. Not a teammate on the field, and not one in life - that position had already been filled, but met with denial and refusal.

She attempts to pull herself together, gathering herself and her bag.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” she whispers, and walks past him.

“Gin,” he says, catching her as she reaches the door. “I’ll wait,” he says with a sincerity she’s never heard from him before.

Her eyes are cast down, staring at her sandaled feet. “How long?”

“Until you’re ready. I’ve got forever,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Well not forever, old man,” she teases.

“Forever,” punctuated with a squeeze of her hand, sealing their truth.


	29. Chapter 29

"Mike you can't keep acting all caveman, Ginny's going to figure out that you like her," Blip said.

“I carried her bag for her, it’s not like I threw her over my shoulder and carried _her_ into the house,” he argues, but Blip has always been adept at reading Mike in a way that only a select few can, the list growing to include Ginny, as he’s quickly realizing.

Blip’s eyes narrow, staring the nervous man in front of him up and down, searching for a hint at what was going on, adding it to the list of evidence he’d already collected from the two over the last few months. He sees Mike’s eyes flicker to Ginny as she moves to lift the bag onto the couch, leaning forward as if willing his body to be near her without actually moving.

“She already knows, doesn’t she?” he asks, knowing the answer before Mike even answers.

Mike crosses his arms, a gruff face attempting to cover the look of affection and concern he’d just sent her way. “Know what? I don’t like her,” he plays coy, every part of his body betraying him, as he glances over at her out of the corner of his eye, again. Always mapping where she is in relation to him.

“Oh, I know you don’t like her. You love her,” he proclaims, a little too loudly, and the girls look over at them, causing Mike’s face to scrunch in disbelief, denial, a heated blush traveling up his neck. 

“No, no,” he steps forward, trying to squash the conversation, and quiet the man declaring things Mike would much rather leave floating in the air above, not quite landing on its recipient in the form of words just yet.

“Fine, fine. But I swear, Mike, don’t fuck this up,” he warns, like a protective big brother.

“What are you guys talking about,” Ginny asks, the eager face of Evelyn hovering behind her.

“Nothing,” Mike innocently says at the same time as Blip’s sarcastic, _“Everything.”_


	30. Chapter 30

"Happy New Year, Ginny."

She stirs, snuggling further into his plaid shirt, hand always gripped tightly, as if afraid he’ll vanish while she sleeps, the threat of him not being there too real.

“Gin,” he says a bit louder, the arm tucked around her shoulder squeezing and rubbing up and down to quietly wake and settle her dreaming mind.

“Hmm,”she sleepily hums, her eyes slowly batting open.

“Happy New Year,” he murmurs against the crown of her forehead, the stubble from the beard he’s growing back, scratching her further awake.

“It’s midnight already?” she glances around, the low fire in his living room, meant for ambience than essential warmth, casts off an extra heat present that night, the blanket wrapped around them, trapping them in a furnace.

She wiggles to free her legs from his own, having somehow tangled as she fell asleep.

“I missed it,” she says with a slight pout to her lips.

“And you call me old,” he teases, pinching her side.

“You’re just happy to see another year, old man.” He smiles down at her, sleep-laden eyes, curls everywhere, and her hand still gripped to his shirt, as fireworks crack throughout the night sky.

Letting out a gruff laugh, he leans down, placing a sweet kiss upon her lips. The warmth of the room incinerating him in that moment, as she moves to deepen the kiss, refusing to let go, until it becomes necessary to catch her breath.

Her eyes are still closed as he leans his forehead against her own. 

“What was that for?” she says so softly, her words tickle his face, causing a shiver to run through him, the hand on her face shaking slightly, as his thumb traces the curvature of her cheekbone, earning him a smile he can feel from her.

“Starting the New Year off right,”he offers, the idea of this night being an indication of the year to come exciting him.

“How about we start this New Year off with a bang,” and his eyes pop open, going wide, with a shocked Ginny of a groan escaping from him.

She glances over to the coffee table, a bottle of bubbly having been waiting for them since they first sat down. “I meant the champagne, Mike.”

“Right,” he nods, his eyebrow raised with a sly grin.

She playfully pushes his chest away. “Just open the bottle, Lawson,” she demands, pushing her curls out of her face, and quietly adjusting the blanket on her lap.

He pops the cork open and pours them a couple of flutes in champagne that she’d insisted he dig out from a shelf high up and tucked way back.

“To the New Year” he toasts, handing her her glass.

“To us,” she counters, clinking her glass against his own.

“To us,” he agrees, placing his free hand on her blanketed knee, sealing their toast, a promise for a good year for them both, together, with a drink.


	31. Chapter 31

"So what's your New Year's resolution?"

She can feel him staring at her from across the room, his penetrating gaze traveling through the crowd of people and fixating on her. She’s made friends with one of her teammates’ dates, she’s not sure which one, because she zoned out of the conversation the moment she’d glanced up, a slightly less bearded version of her catcher gripping his glass just a little too tight, his eyes a little too obviously roaming over the sparkly curves that seemed to shimmer even when she wasn’t moving.

Her mouth had gone dry, her mixed drink doing nothing to relieve the parched feeling, instead causing an unquenchable thirst that seemed to spread through her causing a heat to overtake her.

“Oh, I don’t know, what about you?” she offers to the woman’s question, only half paying attention to the answer. But soon she leans forward at the funny response she’s given, her curls bouncing with laughter, dimples beaming, and she stumbles in her impossibly high heels, a detail Evelyn had insisted upon. Her dress gleaming in the lights, casting little rays of light, like teasing particles of sunshine being cast right at Mike, beckoning him forward.

She spies him setting his drink down out of the corner of her eye, and then he makes his way towards her, being carried forward by the lull of infectious, hoarse giggles signaling the sound of the familiar.

He’s by her side before she knows it, and his face still stubbled from the infamous shave that caused a thousand bad jokes and one heated argument that ultimately led to her admittance that she preferred the beard. He’d since began growing it out again, but his face was still relatively bare. His blue dress shirt is rolled up to his elbows, accentuating his taut forearms, and bulging veins, as he clenches his fists, in - out, as if relieving himself of the tension building between them.

“Hey,” she leads with, his wandering eyes pandering over her more closely now, stopping at the dip of the neckline before traveling further south over the curvature of her hips to the tips of the toes, clearly not caring that a third party stands in front of her. A side grin appearing on her lips, as she takes in his obvious approval of her dress.

The blonde makes a quick exit when neither one of them acknowledges her, instead Ginny moves towards him, vacating her wall, and he moves to take her drink, moving it up to his own lips, taking a sip with a raise of his eyebrow before handing it back to her, and she looks down at the melting ice, the condensation from the glass cooling her for a brief second.

“You look…” he starts, fumbling for words, but his blown out pupils indicating all he can’t with words. “Good,” he finally gets out, glancing around them, breaking contact with her form for the first time since she’d entered the party. As if suddenly realizing they were actually in public. This earns him a snort of laughter, that she tries to cover with her hand, but the flicker in her eyes gives her away.

“Just good?” she teases, and then leans in against his ear, her curls tickling his face, and he lowers his head, the scent of lilies and something so uniquely Ginny paralyzing him. “Because the way you’ve been eye fucking me across the room, I’d say I look better than just _good.”_

A groan ripples through him, reverberating across her collarbone, and sent straight to her core, burying itself inside her.

“Don’t start something you’re not prepared to finish, Ginny,” he warns, placing his hand on her waist, pulling her into him, and this time it’s her that’s glancing around, making sure no one’s staring at them, Mike backing her against the wall, while simultaneously pulling her toward him at the same time, a gasp escaping her at the feel of him against her.

“Oh, I fully plan on finishing,” she murmurs into him, moving her head slightly back to rub her nose against his own, her eyelashes making contact with his cheek like soft, silent promises of what’s to come.

Something resembling “ _Gin”_ rumbles through him, and then he’s pulling back to look her in the eye, a twitch of a grin playing on his lips. “My resolution was to be more supportive of my teammates.”

She nods. “Hmm,” she hums through hooded eyes, his nose nuzzling her neck, his lips barely whispering over her neck.

“Nothing wrong going on here, just two teammates helping each other out,” he offers.

“Teammates,” she repeats back to him.

“One teammate just happens to be dressed like sin,” his hands roam over her dress, glittering back at him.

“Happy New Year to you,” she teases, stepping away from him, but not before grabbing his hand, leading him away from the crowd.

“Happy fucking New Year to us,” he agrees, following her wherever she leads him.


	32. Chapter 32

"I miss you..."

Her laugh comes through the phone, hitting his ear sharply. “We just saw each other.”

He glances over at the empty side of his bed, the sheets still tucked in, the pillow fluffed and unused. And he sinks deeper into his side, gripping the phone tightly, as if willing her to appear if he held the phone just right, said just the right words.

Silence rings out between them, the steady drift of her breath across the speaker serves a soft lull - an almost presence that has him closing his eyes.

“You still there or did you fall asleep, old man?”

“I’m here,” he sleepily replies.

“Is this how it’s gonna be every away game? Late night phone calls where you fall asleep on me?” He hears rustling from her end, assuming she’d climbed into bed, settling in for the night, and he waits for the TV to be turned on, silence never allowed, the voices of others needed to lull her to sleep.

“Ugh,” he groans, not wanting to think about how many nights he’ll be forced to spend away from her. The off-season having given him an unrealistic expectation of her warm body pressed against him every night, her tangle of curls splashed over his face, her hand gripping him tighter to her, hell, even her soft snores have become his lullaby.

“Baby,” she teases.

“Baby or old man, make up your mind, Baker,” 

A soft knock comes from his door, and he debates ignoring it, but he drags himself out of bed, opening the door in only his underwear.

“Is that how you answer the door when I’m gone?” her eyes raking over his bare chest, and traveling further south with a raised eyebrow.

He grabs her hand, yanking her inside, before sticking his head out to make sure no one had seen her.

“What are you doing here?” His bleary eyes now wide awake, looking at her like an illusion that his mind had conjured up.

She looks down, and while he can’t see the blush on her cheeks, he knows it’s there by the tilt of her head, her dimples popping into place.

“So what, maybe I missed you too,” she offers, a slight smile peeking through her sarcasm, causing a big goofy grin to appear on his own face.

“You missed me?” He asks, the satisfied grin not leaving his face.

“Yeah, I couldn’t fall to asleep without that furnace you call a chest making it unbearably hot,” she teases, digging her finger into his bare chest. But he grabs her hand, bringing a kiss to it.

“You missed me,” he repeats, letting the feeling of being wanted, needed even, sink over him. Glad that away games weren’t actually going to mean them away from each other.

“Hmm, can we go to sleep now? Lord knows you need your beauty rest,” she mocks, with a pat to his cheek, her fingers brushing over his beard.

They settle into bed Ginny scooting impossibly close, his hand resting on the small of her back, pulling her to rest against him, her hair tickling his chin.

He feels her murmur something against him but he can’t make out what she’s said.

“What was that?”

She peeks her head out from him. “Home.”


	33. Chapter 33

"So do you want to find out?"

Ginny asks him from the couch, her feet propped up, and her hand buried in a can of Pringles, loaded baked potato flavored. She brings her fingers to her mouth to lick the remnants away, just as he plops down next to her.

“Doesn’t matter, I already know,” confidence oozing from him, his hand coming to rest on her thigh, a gentle squeeze at his admittance.

“Yes, we know that you have a _feeling_ , which makes no sense given that I’m the one pregnant, but perhaps we should let a medical professional confirm what you claim to already know, oh wise one,” she says with a flourish of her hand, holding onto a chip as she flings it around with a roll of her eyes.

Looking down he sees pieces of her snack scattered over her stomach, the crumbly mess looking to share itself with their baby. 

“Have any of the chips actually made it into your mouth?” His teasing gaze following her hand as she munches on another one.

“Yep,” she says with her mouth full, looking down to see what he was talking about. “Oooh,” she practically sings, picking up the crumbs and shoveling them into her mouth.

Mike just shakes his head, her appetite never ceasing to amaze him.

“God, I hope she’s just like you,” he echoes the thought he’d been thinking since she told him she was pregnant. The image of a little girl with her curls springing to his mind almost immediately.

“Or maybe _he’ll_ be just like me,” she teases. Making a grabbing hand for her drink, mouth too full to ask without spitting food at him (and she had done that before) and he gets the hint, and leans over to reach it for her. “Thanks,” she says between bites, slurping her soda down.

“You really think it’s a boy?” and he sounds a bit brokenhearted as he asks, the first crack in his insistence of it being a girl in close to five months.

She wipes her hands on her pants, before reaching out to grab his arm, her warm grip easing his almost adorable pout that he could possibly be wrong.

“No, I don’t know,” she pauses, as if thinking of the right words to say. “I just…,” she hesitates again, looking down this time at her hand resting over pulse. “I don’t want you to be disappointed if it’s not what you want,” she mutters, her eyes heavy and refusing to meet his own.

She can feel his pulse quicken underneath her fingers.

“Gin,” he whispers. “Hey,” he reaches out, his fingers under her chin, bringing her brown, teary eyes to focus on him. “I’m just joking around, Gin. Do I think it’s a girl? Absolutely. I feel it in my old, creaky bones,” he says with a wink. “But hey, if it’s not. If it’s a boy, I will be just as happy.”

She moves to wipe away the tears that have fallen, but he’s faster, using the pad of this thumb to softly run underneath her eyes, soaking up her doubt for her.

“You promise?” she sniffles out.

“I promise,” and seals it with a kiss to her forehead.

“But you still think it’s a girl,” she laughs, much to his relief.

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely a girl,” he says with a grin to match.


	34. Chapter 34

"You asking me out on a date, old man?"

She crosses her arms, a challenging grin in place, anticipating his insulting refusal, another joke among teammates. They’d been flirting across the line they’d drawn after their almost kiss last year, but the line was starting to get farther and farther from view, more like a dot at this point. The fear always present on the fringe of her mind, the ramifications of her actually, officially dating Mike lingering over them. The act of actually admitting just how far they’d crossed the line, how much further they were willing to go, and the possibility of others finding out, threatening to catapult them to the finish line before they even started. 

So this is where they lingered, playful jokes, and her sleeping in his guest room - a friendly offer when she’d gotten injured. Nothing to see here, just teammates who happen to live together, and enjoy each other’s company, and occasionally kiss, you know, just to see what it would be like, teetering on the edge of friendship. But friends they were. Just friends.

“What if I am?” he poses, not exactly the biting insult she’d come to expect whenever they drifted into relationship waters. They’d dipped their toes in the deep end, testing the waters with kisses that quickly became heated. They’d floated with a life vest when a particularly bad day had her crawling into bed with him, waking up dangerously close, and neither moving to untangle themselves from each other. But they’d never taken a few steps back and jumped right in. 

Her grin fades, replaced with nerves, worrying her bottom lip. He’d presented the offer as a hypothetical, room for them to wiggle out of this precarious situation if they wanted. She looks up, her eyes roaming over pieces of him. The beard that he promised to grow back for her now prominently displayed, almost like it never was gone - like a fuzzy comfort that had grown back to her.

His hand reaches out, the same hand that had literally picked her off the floor when she had a particularly bad day. It lands on her lip, gently loosening her grip form her teeth, and soothing over the sting that left a beating pulse.

He tilts his head, a shy smile left in place over the usually cocky grin, his confidence fleeting at her silence. Reading and literally waiting for when she was ready. Always.

Time to jump in.

“You know, I’m not a cheap date, Lawson,” she warns, and the smug grin reappears on his face.

“Oh, I know. You eat me out of house and home,” he jokes with a snicker of adoration.

She steps towards him, and he remains planted where he is, a permanent fixture in her life. And she nods.

“Is that a yes?” he ducks, trying to see her eyes. She nods again. “You’re sure? This is what you want? The Mike Lawson experience?” he jokes.

She snorts with laughter, her hand coming to hide her mouth, shielding her dimples from him.

“You forget, I’ve been living with the Mike Lawson experience for quite some time now. I’d like a refund.”

He pulls his hand to his heart. “You wound me, Baker.”

She grows serious. “We’re really doing this?” Looking up at him, brown eyes shining at him, the possibility of more within reach.

“We’re really doing this, Gin.”

“Good,” she says with an actual bounce, energy abound. “Pick me up at 8,” she says as she walks past him.

He stares after her in wonder. “We live together.”

“Then you have no excuse.” She stops, turning around, walking backwards with a teasing smile. “Unless 8 is past your bedtime, old man,” and then she’s out the door.

But she swears she can hear him mutter, “more like the Ginny Baker experience,” and he’s right. Although she’s hoping for more than an experience with them, and something more like a lifetime.


	35. Chapter 35

"I want you..."

He makes out her voice, barely above a whisper. She’s standing dangerously close to him, having just come from the gym, her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, sweat glistening every part of her body. A necklace dangles from her neck, accentuating her pounding chest that moves erratically as she tries to catch her breath. She’s in black - she’s always in black - but this set of lycra has red accents, that kind that suggest she’s on fire or about to light him on fire at any moment.

He’s still dressed in sweatpants, never starting his day as early as her. They’d been living together for close to five months now, upon his insistence that the hotel was just sad, especially when she was injured. He’d taken to playing the dutiful nurse quickly, her incessant teasing that he put on the slutty Halloween costume to match in the beginning months soon faded to quiet appreciation, and landed somewhere back at friends that acted more like a married couple than he and Rachel ever did.

He can see her mouth moving, but he’s so focused on the steady pulse of his blood in his ears, his eyes having focused on her lips, chapped from the unusually cold morning they were having. He feels himself reach out to grab the counter, steadying himself, as the roar of his thoughts rush past him.

She wants him. That’s a first. He’s never felt wanted or needed in his life. It’s a feeling he’s been chasing since he was a kid, and one he thought he’d found, but realized he’d just been grasping at something, anything familiar to keep him rooted. His divorce had ended with him searching for comfort at the bottom of an empty glass and in between the legs of countless women. He’d become notorious for it.

But that all stopped when he met Ginny.

And when things got a little too real with her, sure, he’d slipped with Amelia and then Rachel, but it always came back to Ginny.

It hadn’t been instant, it hadn’t been something that hit him over the head. No, it was slow, casual. One day he’s sticking up for her because she’s talented and strong, and honestly blew him away, and the next thing you know, he’s identifying songs mangled by her humming, picking cilantro off her tacos before he knows that’ll lead to a rant (but secretly doesn’t even mind, because it’s cute), picking up grape soda at the one gas station that has it, familiar with every callus on her hand, the exact indentation of her dimples, and which side of the bed she sleeps on.

He’s fallen for her. And he doesn’t even want to try to get back up.

“Mike,” she says loudly, her eyes flicker with amusement and irritation. He snaps himself back to the present, back to the matter at hand.

“You want…” he starts.

“I want you to pick up tortilla chips at the store when you go today,” she says, sidestepping him to reach for a glass in the cabinet. She fills it with water before turning to lean against the counter. “You do remember it’s your turn, right?”

“Tortilla chips, got it,” he tries reel himself back in, his mind having wandered to a dangerous place, a place they never speak of and pretend only exists out of each other’s reach.

She shakes her head at him, a dimpled smile inching across her face. “You forgot, didn’t you? Old man, I swear, your really are losing it,” she teases.

He doesn’t respond, instead squinting at her, as if trying to figure out exactly how to go about the feelings that refuse to be stifled much longer.

“I didn’t forget. I’ve got a mind like a steel trap,” he nods at her, as he moves to add her item onto the list they keep on his otherwise bare fridge. An addition Ginny had insisted upon, because despite his claims, he often did come home having forgotten something.

“Right, hmm,” she sarcastically nods along, taking another gulp of water.

“I’ll get you that salsa you like too,” he absentmindedly says, as he stares at his sloppy handwriting mixed in with her loopy one, co-mingling on the list.

“What would I do without you?” she sighs, coming up behind him, leaning her sweaty head on his shoulder.

“Hopefully, you’ll never have to find out,” he assures her, coming out more teasing than sincere, but it’s at that moment he’s decided, he’s asking her out. Because he doesn’t know what he’d do without her either at this point.


	36. Chapter 36

"Hold on Ginny, the medic is on his way!"

He’s muttering non-sense to her, her face grimaces in pain, and every whimper is like a stab to his heart. She has a high tolerance for pain, just another endless fact on his Ginny list of things he knows about her. So the fact that she has her eyes closed, gripping her arm closely to her, tears streaming down her face, he knows it’s bad.

“Mike,” she gets out, pain etched in his name. “Go. Play.” He just pulls her closer, trying to stop himself from kissing the crown of her head, but there was a crowd of people surrounding her, although the urge was bound to win out before this whole thing is over. They’d tried to make him go back on the field, he’s given them a a hard stare a definitive “No,” before heading in with Ginny.

The truth of the matter was, he couldn’t. He can’t. Because the guilt is eating him alive. He was the cause of this. Everything he touches, he ruins. And Ginny. She was…Ginny. And he couldn’t resist her. He should’ve stopped it. He should’ve stopped that kiss, he should’ve stopped himself from taking her back to his house, he should’ve stopped himself from burying himself inside her. But he didn’t. He went through with it all. And the moment that phone rang, she was wishing the exact same thing - it never should’ve happened.

_Had his feelings for her clouded his judgement when he claimed her okay to keep pitching?_

He rubs his hands over his beard, a nervous tick he can’t stop. She moans in pain again, and it runs right through him. He’s convinced the karma for his sins has manifested in her injury, and he’ll never be able to forgive himself for it.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he assures her again, and she stares up at him with big brown eyes, as if begging his words to be true. A flicker of doubt clouding her, and he’s not sure if she’s whimpering more out of pain or the thought of this being it. “No way you’re going out before me,” he says more to himself than her. He’ll make sure of it.

She grabs his hand with her left, lacing their fingers, squeezing in tandem with her waves of pain.

“This isn’t it,” he whispers, the urge winning out, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. And while he’s handing out false promises regarding her injury, the double meaning between them isn’t lost on him…as she still manages to blush in her discomfort.

She nods against his chest. Her eyes closing.

“Don’t leave,” she pleads.

A sigh breaks free from him, sure they’re playing with fire. “I’m not going anywhere, Gin,” he breathes out, like a reflex, an inescapable truth. Because even if they were playing with fire, he was willing to burn for her.


	37. Chapter 37

"You want to explain to me why Mike's hiding in your closet completely naked?"

Ginny’s face falls for a second, blind panic spreading throughout her. They’d been so careful up until that point. Her initial reaction is to lie. So she does.

“No,” she shakes her head, trying to deny her way out of this. But her voice shakes, and she’s wearing his t-shirt, her body practically swimming in the thing, and had she been better on her feet, she could’ve come up with a logical explanation for why they were…how they were. 

However, glancing over towards the closet, she says a trail of his clothes across the floor. As it stands, her shaky _“No”_ comes out as more of a admittance of guilt than an innocent excuse, the evidence literally lining up against her.

Evelyn’s eyebrows raise with a knowing smirk, and Ginny knows they’ve been caught.

With a heavy sigh, leaning her head back to brace herself for the onslaught of squeals and questions, she pushes her curls back with an exasperated, “Fine, Mike’s in the closet.”

“Naked!” Comes out in a high-pitched, ball fisted squee if she’d ever heard one from Evelyn. Followed by a loud groan from behind the closet door.

She gestures with her hand, even though he can’t see her. “Might as well come out, Mike,” she says with a roll of her eyes, before trudging to sit on the bed.

A muffled, “Still naked,” is heard from inside, and she can’t help but snicker at his sudden bout of modesty.

“Oh come on out, Mike and show us the goods. Save poor Ginny from turning red when I ask about it later,” Evelyn teases with a very real threat that Ginny knew was coming.

Mike finally peeks his head out from the door, and Ginny hands him his sweatpants, before he emerges half dressed from the closet. His face is blush red, adorned with a shit eating grin that only he could pull off.

“TELL. ME. EVERYTHING.” Evelyn demands, eyeing Mike up and down as if the secrets would just roll off of him.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she tries, her head buried in her hands, curls hiding her face.

“Hmm,” her friend hums, twisting around, dismissing Ginny from the conversation, knowing she’ll get more out of the grinning fool across from her.

“How long has it been going on? Since she moved in?”

“Ev,” he tries, his eyes darting to Ginny for what to say.

“Is this some kind of friends with benefits situation?” That earned a snort of a giggle from Ginny, causing Evelyn to lean further over, her excitement overtaking her small frame. “Gin?”

“No,” Mike answers for her, but he’s not looking at Evelyn as he states his answer, rather beaming at Ginny, a knowing smile tracing his face, reflected back to him by the woman fiddling with a loose string on the seam of his t-shirt.

“Definitely not,” Ginny echoes.

They’re both not prepared for the sound that comes out of Evelyn’s mouth, something akin to a bird being strangled of its breath, but really excited about its impending death.

“You’re in _love_?” It comes out in one breath, her eyes so big, her hand smacking the duvet like she’s tapping out on account of not being able to breath, and by the looks of it, she could use a break.

“If I say yes will the interrogation stop?” Ginny asks, knowing full well that that was never going to happen. If anything, Mike would be dismissed and the vivid detail portion of this torture would start.

“Yes” Evelyn falsely promises, the excitement trying to be reined in.

“Then yeah, I kind of…sort of…on a really good day, don’t mind the company of this old man,” she winks at him.

Mike shakes his head. “Nah, she’s totally in love with me.” 

“Ugh,” she groans. But he steps towards the door, heading out. “Mike,” she warns.

“I gotta get a drink for Ev,” he gestures down to the kitchen. “It would be rude not to, she’s a guest,” he reasons. And Evelyn nods along with him, wanting to sink her nails into Ginny and squeeze for information.

“Mike, don’t you dare leave me!” She stands up to grab him, but he’s already gone. “I take it back, I definitely do not like you!” She yells, sinking back onto the bed to a smiling Evelyn.

“So, tell me, are the rumors true? Is it really as big as they say? I’m gonna need actual inches here…”

Ginny just collapses back onto the bed. “I hate you so much right now.”


	38. Chapter 38

She had been laying sprawled out on the bed, a halo of dark curls against the white bedsheets, gripped tightly between her fingers, as a guttural moan breaks free from her.

Ginny can feel the satisfied grin against her skin, Mike’s beard scratching wide over her, leaving a trail of red as he made his way down, a stinging that radiated off her in a tingling of feelings that lingered above them.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to doing… _that_. She thinks as another whimper escapes her. Her vision blurring, as she moves her head to peek at him through hooded eyes and fluttering lashes, to find him grinning at her from between her legs, before collapsing back into a writhing mess with every stroke of his tongue, his hand coming to rest on her hips, pinning them to the mattress.

“Mike,” she groans, and she can feel his reciprocating response of “ _Gin”_ run right through, until it’s ringing in her hears like a soft murmur pulsing over her, like a faint knocking, over and over, asking permission to shatter all her walls.

_Knock. Knock._

A dizzying _“Ginny”_ can be heard, this time a woman’s voice, and it has her scrunching up her face in confusion, her hand worming it’s way through Mike’s hair, having abandoned the sheets as her lifeline, instead tethering herself to the man intent on making her sing.

_Knock. Knock._

This time the knocks come louder, stirring her from the daze she’s under. “Mike, someone’s knocking on the door,” she whispers, but still, he doesn’t pause, instead gripping her thigh tighter, and leaving her hips to wander, as his dexterous hands become involved.

“Hmm,” she hums loudly, this time leaving no wonder to Mike’s ears about what tune she’s singings, it’s his rhythm that’s running through her, straight out of her mouth. _Always his._

_Bang._

She stills, propping her head up, she knows that sound. She’s been greeted with it several times upon trying to open her door and being met with a lock.

“Oh my god, Mike, someone’s at the door!” She says, panicking as he gazes up at her.

“What?” he says confused.

“Get in the closet!” She demands, pushing up from the bed, frantically searching the room for something to throw on.

“Gin,” he starts, but the door’s clicked open, the and cheery voice of Evelyn rings through, just as a glimpse of Mike’s ass passes over her as he slams himself in the closet next to her bed.

Ginny runs a hand through her hair, a grin like the Grinch spreading over Evelyn’s face, as she stares at Ginny’s bare legs, wild curls, and flickering eyes towards the closet.

“Hey, Ev. What’s up?” She tries to play it cool, her voice coming out hoarse and weak, and she can see the excitement bubbling in Evelyn’s eyes, the strangle of a scream being suffocated in place of her response.

“So why’s Mike’s naked in your closet, Ginny?”


	39. Chapter 39

"What the hell just happened?"

The piercing chirp of the fire alarm can be heard throughout the kitchen, echoing off the walls of their glass house, sending a panicked alert to its residents, as he trudged down the stairs.

There, in their kitchen, stood the culprit. 

Ginny.

Towering over him on the kitchen counter, bare feet shuffling across the smooth surface, her shirt, or rather his shirt that he’d shed last night, was riding dangerously high, as she waved a striped towel back and forth over the ceiling, desperately trying to get the alarm to stop making its cry of warning.

Looking around his kitchen, he sees a pan still resting on the stove, a heavy smoke traveling through the kitchen, dancing across Ginny’s legs as she continues to stand over him, but having given up trying to make the sound stop.

He moves to take the pan to the sink - what looks like strips of charcoal rest in the offensive object, and the trail of smoke follows him, leaving a charred smell attaching itself to his beard, burying the smell for later.

He looks up at her, a sheepish smile covering her face, as she brings her feet to the edge of the counter, before lowering herself to stand in front of him.

“Bacon?” he yells, guessing at the attempted breakfast.

She nods, blowing a curly tendril out of her face, twisting her hands in the towel she’s still holding.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she yells back over the noise.

He laughs at that. “Gin, I’ve seen you evaporate the insides of a hot pocket in the microwave.”

She whips her head up to look at him. “Hey, we don’t know that. It could’ve been a product issue, like maybe they forgot to put anything in it.”

“You accidentally set it to cook for an hour,” he deadpans, but a grin overtakes him, thinking about her face when she’d realized she’d not only forgotten she was cooking something when the timer didn’t go off several minutes later, but her determination to saw into the hard as rock shell afterwards, only to find shriveled pepperonis and evaporated cheese.

“Those things should not allow you to cook something that long,” she points with a skeptical face towards the microwave like it was her nemesis.

He places his hands on her hips, pulling her closer until their noses touch - the ringing of the alarm continuing in its cry.

“Best to leave the cooking to me,” he teases, but it comes out more as a whisper against the noise.

“I’m a failure,” she pouts against his lips.

He shakes his head. “Nah, just when it comes to cooking. And driving. And humming…anything musical, really…”

“Okay, enough. I get it, I suck,” she says louder than necessary for their distance with a roll of her eyes.

“Sucking. Oh yeah, you’re really good at that,” he says with a wink, and she slaps his chest.

“Gross,” she protests with a scrunch of her face, her dimples showcasing her embarrassment.

Her grabs for her, burying his smoky beard in her neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he laughs into her.

“Yeah, you better be. I’m awesome at a lot of things,” she argues, just as the alarm finally ceases, causing her to look up.

“No argument from me,” he murmurs against her pulse point, placing a soft kiss there.

And then her stomach growls, causing a laugh from both of them.

“I guess that’s my cue,” he jokes, reluctantly pulling away from her to grab more bacon and a new pan. “You’re lucky you have me,” he teases from the fridge.

She nods, a soft smile appearing on her face not visible to him.

“Yeah, yeah,” she sarcastically huffs, but he sees the sincerity behind her words when he turns to see her grinning at him.


	40. Chapter 40

"What's your room number, Rookie?"

She scrunches her face into her drink, hovering over the liquid like it’s going to keep her from making a bad decision, as opposed to pushing her into one.

“Nope,” she says, defiant, with a glint of a tease in her eye.

He leans over, his body having been facing her the entire time, choosing to have his back to the rest of the hotel bar, zeroing his focus in on her. 

Ginny averts her eyes from his arms, leaning across the bar, inches away from her hand, and she finds her fingers jumping across her wet mug, drumming off-beat to the distant sound of whatever song was playing.

“You promised,” she narrows her eyes at him, a warning present, daring him to back out of their agreement upon her return.

She expects him to hold up his hands, claim he’s doing nothing wrong, cocky grin in place, as he glides across the line, shattering his deal.

Instead, he fixes her with a gaze that suggests he’s not even going to play coy, his eyes raking over her in a hoodie, lyrca pants, and tennis shoes. Her hair just recently let loose from it’s tie, curls bouncing off her face.

Her tongue flicks out across her lips, and she sees his eyes immediately flick to the gesture.

“Gin, one night,” he pleads, slipping his hand quietly with her own, stilling her drum solo, the condensation lingering on her fingertips, soaked up by his palm.

She shakes her head with a smile, knowing that one night was never going to be just one night, but rather a decision she’d find herself allowing to happen every single night.

Leaning her head to the side, her lips pursed, a knowing look passing over her. “You know it wouldn’t be just one night,” she argues.

“I’m not above begging, Baker,” he says with a wink.

“Are you sure your ego could take a hit like that?”

He leans further into her, and she panics, glancing around at the other patrons, sure no one was paying them any attention.

“For you, I’ll take the hit,” he whispers against her.

She gives her head one last shake, one final admittance that this is a bad idea. And then she’s spreading his palm in front of her, her fingertip dancing over his life line, his heart line, leaving a trail of water, as she traces the numbers 6, 0, 5 into him, leaving a shiver running through them both.

And before he can say a word she’s out of her chair, heading up to her room.

She’s had just enough time to change into a t-shirt and sweatpants before he’s knocking on her door.

Leaning against her doorframe, she yanks him in with a roll of her eyes.

“Jeez, Baker, afraid someone will see me,” he jokes.

“Yes,” she says as she heads into the bathroom, leaving him to strip and settle into bed.

She comes stomping out, a grumpy look on her face. 

“You’re on my side,” she huffs, standing next to the bed, looking down on his drowsy big frame taking up half the bed.

“No, this is my side,” he says with a pat to the other side. “This is your side. You always sleep on the right in our bed,” he reasons, claiming to know her better than herself. And at this point, it’s probably true, although throwing him a curveball every once in a while keeps him on his toes.

“Yeah, except when the bed faces this way, and then I like the left,” she argues like she’s making perfect sense, and it’s him with the quirks.

“Ahh, never near the door, got it,” not even blinking at her reasoning, just scooting over to his side. As she climbs into the warm spot he’d created for her. He drapes an arm over her, resting softly on her hips, his head positioned on her pillow, nose buried in her hair.

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that, right?” She whispers into the dark space around them, resting her hand over his.

“You love it,” he says, snuggling deeper into her. And she knows full well that sleeping a part at this point was near impossible, but their agreement to adhere to that to keep their relationship secret had seemed like a good idea.

“Whatever you say, Cuddles.”


	41. Chapter 41

"Mike, we can't let anybody can see us..."

“So?” he shrugs, his nonchalant attitude about the whole situation irritating her.

 _“So?”_ She mimics, throwing her hands up in the air, as she continues walking to his car. “So why don’t we just make out in public? Or hell, I could just strip right here, let you have your way with me in the middle of the sidewalk?”

His hand stills on the door handle, a devilish grin overtaking his bearded face. “I’m confused, are you saying no to dinner or propositioning me? Because I’m down for all of that,” he gestures with his hand to the sidewalk she’s fuming on.

Her eyes narrow into slits.

“I’m kidding, Gin. Come on, it’s just dinner. Friends…teammates go to dinner all the time. Hell, if sharing food was as scandalous as you’re making it sound, Evelyn would be way more jealous of Blip and I,” he says with a wink.

She relaxes a little, her arms coming uncrossed to hang by her side, but her lip is still worried between her teeth, a thoughtful look passing over her face, before glancing down at her shoes.

“It’s not the same with us…” she ventures, trying to get her point across. They’re not normal, never have been. It’s always been more when it comes to the two of them - flirting with that line of impropriety - and going out to dinner was certainly never going to be as friendly as he promised it would be.

“No, it’s not,” he reasons back, knowing that while his intentions are to act as a friendly duo that happen to both be hungry, it would ultimately end with him accidentally brushing against her hand, leaning too forward, watching her lips move as she talks. And she’d laugh, and he’d swear he could feel the vibration in his chest, while biting back what he really wanted to tell her, the words that lingered at the tip of his tongue with every word spoken to her.

They’d spent quite a bit of time working their way back to the way things were before Boardner’s, but if they were being completely honest, their interactions were full of trepidation, always worried they were tip-toeing into something they weren’t yet ready for, instead standing firmly in a grey area of indecision.

“Just dinner?” She peeks up across at him, her eyes twinkling in the dark with only the streetlights looming over them.

“Just dinner,” he reassures her, willing himself to make this as normal as possible for her - reining in his feelings with a cough, and a gesture for her to climb in.

“So where are we going?” She says with an ease he wasn’t expecting, given their spat just two seconds ago. 

“Up to you, Baker,” he offers, knowing that they’ll ultimately end up going where she wants anyway, every one of his suggestions called off with an absurd reason that only made sense to her.

“How about that one place you were talking about the other day that you found by the juice bar I get my green drink,” she offers, a spoken code that only Mike could solve.

“Ahh, you’re finally going to take my suggestion. Wise,”he nods, knowing exactly where she’s talking about, and puts his blinker on to make their way into traffic.

“They say that comes with age, I guess you would know,” she teases, reaching over his arm resting on the console to adjust the radio to something more pop-y for her taste, brushing against his arm.

And he swears, the blinking of the light ticks in time with the bomb of feelings he’s attempting to push down.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

His thoughts threatening to out him way before anyone else that happened to see them in public would.


	42. Chapter 42

She rubs her nose against his neck eliciting a content groan from him, her curls catching the sound, lightly bouncing across his chest with the huff of air cascading around them.

Her leg moves to rest on him, his hand resting on her smooth knee, his other arm trapped beneath her, a happy sacrifice he’d all but surrender feeling to just to keep her close. His hand wanders, pushing up her striped cotton dress. Callused fingers tracing the line of her spine, causing her to arch into his side, a ghost of a shiver running through, traveling over him, sharing the sensation. A parade of goosebumps dancing over them both.

The sun catches them in its glare, the rays bronzing the hue of the room, surrounding them in a soft glow spreading serenely over them, trapping them in a moment, one filled with a contentment they’d cocooned themselves in, not at all prepared to surrender the tranquility to the chaos awaiting them outside - the real world threatening to tear them apart, strip them of their declarations, and test their validity against the judgment of their peers, their critics.

He pulls her closer, attempting to fuse her to him permanently. The fear of what’s to come lingering in the back of his mind. They’d spent the majority of their relationship shrouded in secrecy. Quick kisses, quiet fucks, silent _I love you’s_ passed between them while in public. Their only time together, when she would scream his name, loudly proclaiming all she felt, her pleas for more held within the glass walls of this house - all of which were about to shatter.

Placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, she hums against him, eyelashes fluttering open, tickling his neck with their flight.

Her phone buzzes against the night stand for the twentieth time in the last ten minutes, its vibration the only disturbance in an otherwise peaceful setting. They ignore the alert, instead choosing to relish what little privacy they have left.

She moves to rest her chin against his chest, staring up at him, and he peeks down at her, her brown eyes shining at him, a glistening of moisture threatening to sneak down her cheeks, laying tracks towards their future.

“You regret it?” She asks, a quiver in her voice, giving permission for the tears to fall, quietly and treacherously.

He shakes his head. “Not even a little bit,” he says in a whisper with such reverence, it washes over her like a prayer, a request of sorts, to please spare them from the worst.

Her flat stomach rests against his side, a soft rumbling tearing him from the serious moment of reflection. And she lets out a hoarse giggle, the kind that has her hiding her face from him, not even in embarrassment but the timing of it all. His chest is left to soak up her tears, happy to steal the pain away from her.

He gestures with his head towards her. “Pretty soon it’ll be an actual person kicking for attention,” he says in wonder. Her eyes alight with awe whenever he makes mention of the baby nestled inside her. The one he constantly reminds himself that he put there. His statement earning him a dimpled smile, and he reaches up, running his thumb of the indent of sunshine radiating from her.

“Although, I’d say she’s already demanding attention, given the statement that just went out,” he breeches the subject, the news that was currently raining down over them, it’s backlash thundering at their door.

“Well she is a Lawson, after all,” she says with a wink. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t go to her head like some people,” she teases with a finger to his ribs, his attempt to twist away from her failing, as he lays entangled, her legs still wrapped around him.

The phone buzzes again, and she glances at it, the screen filled with messages, their response met with silence, as he turns the phone over, choosing instead to live in ignorance just a little longer.

She settles back down, snuggled into him, the scent of lilies and strawberries invading his senses, as she surrounds him, lulling them both into comfortable silence, her hand gripping his side tightly, refusing to let him leave - not that that thought had ever crossed his mind.

He’d spent months denying his feelings, smothering them down, running as far from her as he could get, only to be met with resistance, the pain in his ass worming her way into his heart, gripping tightly, and squeezing whenever she got too far, entangling their veins and syncopating their beats until it was so loud all he could hear was her, all he could feel was her.

And as he lay in bed with her, the sound of only their equal breaths intermixing in such close proximity, he can’t help but be thankful he’d found her, or rather that she’d found him. A partnership born out of teamwork, evolving into something that amounted to nothing short of waking up each morning and choosing each other every day.

The product of their countless choices expected to make it arrival in eight months time.

He sinks further into the bed, settling them both against the stark white sheets, the rise and fall of their life felt in the movement of her stomach against his side in time with his own.

“I love you,” he whispers into the quiet room, his words settling over them, as he closes his eyes, letting the rest of the world wait just a little longer so he can have one more peaceful night with his girl.


	43. Chapter 43

Friends with benefits. It seemed like a good idea but now...

As she stood in the clubhouse, watching her teammates scroll through picture after picture of Mike’s latest conquest. She couldn’t help the rage in her heart making her see red. A blushing heat spreading through her like fire, engulfing her with regret. Suddenly a label she’d plastered to them with cheap glue, hoping to keep them together, while simultaneously falling apart every night, didn’t seem all that beneficial to her at that moment.

Mike walks in with nothing but a towel and a smug grin he sends her way, but the smile is quickly dropped when he sees her fists clenched, and amused laughter of everyone around him.

She gives him credit, it only takes him a second to realize what’s going on, before she’s on her heels, hoping to slam her door shut before he can squeeze his way in. But he’s smart, he waits. Even plays along with the guys, faint laughter can be heard, but the actual words are a mystery, although she can just imagine. She’s pacing her little cubby, shaking her hands out, trying to rid herself of some of the tension snaking around her. But it doesn’t work. _What if he wasn’t playing along with the guys, what if he actually was proud?_

They don’t say it. _I love you._ Sometimes she thinks it so loud she’s sure that he can hear her, responds in kind. But the actual words, they’re not allowed. After their first night together, she told him that was it. One and done. Out of their system, they could move on. Then one night became two, two became three, and pretty soon she found herself all but moved in with him, spending most nights over. Except last night. 

They knew everything about each other. He knew the spot on her neck behind her ear that made her whimper, she knew the exact hue of hazel, every fleck of green documented in his eyes when he came. He knew to ask for no cilantro, but extra cheese for her, and she knew pepperoni gave him heartburn, but he’d eat it anyway. She’d count the freckles on his shoulders early in the morning before she rolled out of bed for her workout, and she’d caught him more than a few times twisting his fingers in her curls thinking she was asleep.

But they weren’t dating. They weren’t in love.

They were friends. With benefits.

And apparently, one of those benefits was that they could be with other people.

She exhales loudly, as her door peeks open, Mike quietly slipping in, and she’d never felt like more of a dirty secret that was being kept locked away.

“Ginny,” he pleads, his hands out, searching for her, but she crosses her arms, her mouth set in a hard line. “Ginny, I can explain.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to,” and he looks at her confused. “We’re not together, you can do what you want,” she seethes.

“No, no,” his forehead wrinkling in frustration, all but stomping closer to her. “Fuck that, this was your idea,” he reaches for her, but thinks better and drops his hand, instead pointing his finger at her with accusation. “You don’t get to throw it back in my face just because you’re upset.”

“So you admit it, you did go home with her last night,” she says with defeat, dropping her head, running her hand over her hair.

“I thought I didn’t need an explanation,” he bites back, stabbing her with every word.

“You don’t,” she says, lifting her head, staring him down, making sure he hears what she’s saying. “This thing,” she gestures between the two of them. “It’s over.” 

His face falls, and she sidesteps him to get the fuck out of there. His delayed reaction only catching her by the fingertips.

“I love you,” he tells her. The actual, concrete words, saturating the room, weighing her down with the heavy moment. She freezes, refuses to turn around, to see him. “I wouldn’t…I didn’t…” he tries, offering her the explanation she needed.

She knows he’s waiting for a response, but he doesn’t push her - just keeps gripping her fingers, the pad of his thumb running across her calluses.

“This thing…” she starts. “It’s still over.”

And a strangled sigh escapes him, but the pressure of his hand never does.

She turns, stepping into him, moving to grab his beard, focusing his sad eyes (and she knows because they become fiercely green), on her. 

“No more friends with benefits,” she amends, and a flicker of hope passes through him. He tilts his head at her, a sideways grin spreading across his face, and she realizes she’s got one to match. She stands on her toes, bringing her mouth to his ear. “You’re mine,” she whispers, sending a shudder through them.

“Yes, ma’am” he teases. “So should I get Baker tattooed on my back or will calling you my girlfriend suffice?”

She lets out a bark of laughter, before quickly covering her mouth, shaking her head at him. “I love you.”

And this time it’s not just a whispering in her head she’s imagining, hoping he hears her thoughts and feels the same. They’re real. _They’re real._


	44. Chapter 44

"TWINS...wait what? Are you sure?"

Ginny tries to lift herself up to bring her face closer to the screen, blinking rapidly, as if her eyes are deceiving her.

They’re not.

There on the screen, two grey figures that resemble gummy bears more than babies, float in the darkness. She can feel the pinprick of tears threatening to fall.

“Oh, I’m definitely sure,” she vaguely hears, as her babies are pointed out to them, the grip on her hand becoming tighter, as she breaks contact with the grainy image to Mike, who has still yet to say a word, but whose eyes are fixated on the same image she can’t help but glance over at, as she waits for some sign of life from him.

When she’s offered nothing but a tight squeeze on her hand, she looks back as they finish up the appointment, the fluttering of their hearts tattooed on her eyelids, dancing across her irises with each blink. 

They make their way to the car, Mike still having offered up nothing but a nod at her doctor as they made their way out. His silence seeming to speak volumes, and her throat feels dry over the overwhelming disappointment he must be feeling. It dampens her mood, and she finds herself picking at her nails in the passenger seat, fighting back the urge to flood him with questions, instead biting her tongue.

“So twins, huh?” He finally fills the car, breaking the stillness of the moment. The casual tone he asks her in, as if they’d just received two sodas from the vending machine having only paid for one, instead of the heaviness of doubling their responsibility of bringing two babies into this world.

She wants to bite his head off, but she reins in her emotions. Instead responding with a, “Hmm, it would seem that way.” She’s biting her bottom lip now, her hand coming to rest on her still flat stomach, the idea of the culmination of both her and Mike resting inside her, splitting into double the dimples, double the curls, double the stubbornness. It has her sighing with frustration.

“If you want out, just tell me now,” she blurts out. He grips the steering wheel tighter, knuckles turning a ghost shade of white, as his eyes go wide, glancing over at her.

“What?” He blanches, shock written all over him. And she shrugs, wanting to face the elephant…or rather both the elephants in the room now rather than further down the line, when resentment starts to cloud his feelings for her.

“Trying to get rid of me already, Baker?”

She looks up at him, a grin in place, but worried lines over his forehead present, the severity of the moment not lost on him.

“I just…neither of us signed up for this when we…you know, that night…and I wouldn’t fault you if it’s…too much,” she stumbles over her words, trying to not let her disappointment cloud his decision, his choice.

“Ginny,” he mutters, an exasperated but gentle sigh escaping him, before he reaches over with his right hand, placing his palm underneath her own, resting on her stomach. “I told you, I’m in. I’m all in. One baby, two babies, a whole team of babies, I’m in,” he says with a wink, but his tone tinged with a sincerity she knows to be genuine, settling her nerves with his warm fingers above their babies. “I was just playing off of you in there.”

“So you’re happy about this?” She tries, peeking at him, unconsciously tracing the veins sprawled across the back of his hand, relishing in the gentle pressure he’s putting against her abdomen.

“If you are, yeah. Two babies? Hell, I come out looking like a stud,” he declares, completely proud of himself with a smug grin.

She shakes her head with a smile. “Mmhmm, please remember that when I tell Amelia and she has you castrated for damaging my brand. Or Evelyn and all her questions, in vivid detail, Mike. Or the public…ugh, this is gonna be terrible. I change my mind, I’m out,” she sighs. Having just wrapped her mind around the idea of being pregnant, and now having to expand (literally) those thoughts not just to the reality of having to break the news to everyone, and the negative reactions that are bound to be shared, but the idea of two babies. That’s a lot.

“We can panic later, let’s just enjoy the news right now,” he reasons with a drum of his fingers against her. And she takes a cue from him, relaxing into her seat, closing her eyes, and letting the sun glaze over her face, the burden of the future dissipating from her mind. “Plus, once everyone sees the two little Ginnys, they’ll forgive me,” he teases her.

“Okay, we’re definitely not letting you name them,” she says, a real dimpled smile making its way across her lips, as they drive back to his house, the rest of her life resting beneath her hand.


	45. Chapter 45

"You're jealous..."

Mike takes a long pull of his beer, attempting to delay the response, before loudly placing the bottle back on the counter.

“I’m not jealous,” he tells her, but even his response seems forced in his head.

She purses her lips in a bemused grin, as she runs her finger over the silky petal of one of the roses set before her. He snorts in protest at the obnoxious display of affection currently residing in his kitchen, shooting daggers at the token of another man’s thoughtfulness with the audacity to actually send it to his address, which also now happens to be her address.

“Okay,” she sarcastically says, reaching across to grab his beer, and taking a drink for herself, only to find it practically empty, and shooting him an incredulous glare. He goes to the fridge, retrieving her another one without a word, sliding it across to her.

“I have nothing to be jealous about,” he tries to reason, as he stares at her, curls pulled up in a ponytail, higher than usual. Only a baggy t-shirt so long it covers the barely there shorts, leaving her impossibly long, toned legs exposed, as she’d packed most of her stuff for spring training, leaving her little left to abandon here, and little on.

She moves to take a sip, puffing out her cheeks like a 5 year old who took a big gulp, pausing upon his words, before nodding slowly.

“Right, why would you be jealous?”

“Exactly. We’re just friends, this is fine,” he tries, his eyes still narrowing at the offending object. “Plus, those roses will be dead by the time we get back.”

At that, her eyes get wide, before steeling her expression, a small smile creeping across her lips, prominent dimple confirming that that was in fact true.

She takes another sip, hiding the blush spreading over her.

“So you all packed?” She tries to change the subject, moving to grab the bag of chips she’d left out earlier.

“For the most part, just a few things left,” she nods, shoving chips into her mouth, licking her lips, and his eyes immediately snap to her tongue darting out.

“You’re gonna miss not having me around all the time,” she teases, their hands meeting in the bag of chips, both reaching for one at the same time. But she doesn’t yank her hand out, instead goes about blindly stealing all the chips within his reach.

He finally gets a few, and quickly eats them, and shakes his head at her antics.

“Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to miss _this_ ,” he points at her now holding the bag, keeping her snack out of reach of him. “Don’t think I won’t come over there,” he warns, pointing at the bag nestled up against her chest.

“I’d like to see you try, old man,” she arches an eyebrow at him.

He stalks over to her, standing right by her, and she squeezes the bag tighter, the crinkling heard over her loud chewing. “Ginny,” he warns, but she just smiles up at him, innocently.

He moves his hand, and she pulls the bag back, holding it out behind her, as far away from him as it can get. Soon he has one arm wrapped completely around, taking a low, wide stance, his beard rubbing against her side, one of her hips, encroaching on dangerous territory, as she juts it out, to try to keep him away.

His fingers begin dancing across her side, and she throws her head back in laughter, a loud boisterous thing, as he continues tickling her. “Mike,” she breathlessly gets out, folding in on herself, the chips moving back to her body, soon wrapped up in him. Her warmth traveling over him, her laugh left to rattle him from the inside out.

“You give?” He asks, her free hand coming to grab his beard, gently yanking on it. Her version of a tap out.

And he makes a quick grab for the chips, holding them up victoriously.

She rolls her eyes at him. “You would really deny me chips?”

He seems to contemplate her question, the large display of roses seemingly mocking him, as she stares at him with those big brown eyes.

And he throws the chips back to her, the bag basically only crumbs now after their play.

A satisfied grin passes over her, as she licks her finger, gathering up the crumbs, and placing them on her tongue.

“I’m going to finish packing,” he moves past her, his hand grazing across her back. “Call me when you’re ready for dinner.”

“Hey, Mike,” she calls out to him, and he pauses on the stairs, turning to her. “You don’t need to be jealous.” It’s not meant to bait him like the last time, in fact, it serves more a reassurance, that there is nothing, no one he needs to worry about.

He nods, his hand gripping the railing just a little tighter. “I know,” he whispers.

“What?” She scrunches her face, not having heard him.

“Daisies,” he responds back, climbing the rest of the stairs, leaving her with a shy dimpled smile at his retreating figure, upon revealing her favorite flower.


	46. Chapter 46

"It's not funny Baker!"

Her infectious, teasing giggle travels across the room like the sunlight being cast in through the floor to ceiling windows, engulfing everything in its light, including their daughter, who was loudly howling with laughter too, not even sure what was funny.

Gnny’s laughing so much, she’s bent over, grabbing her side, gasping for breath, eyes tightly shut, two seconds away from stomping her foot, a full body chuckle that had over taken her.

Kaia comes running up to her, tugging on her arm, bringing their heads together, matching dimples on full display, as he stood by the bed, fighting a grin off his face.

“It’s a….little…funny,” Ginny makes out before reining it in, only the remnants of a smile left in its place, as she gives her daughter an eskimo kiss. 

“Come on, that is so inaccurate, I can’t…that is _not_ what I look like,” he argues.

That catches the attention of the little girl, and she buries her head in her mom’s chest. A small, muffled, “He doesn’t like it” can be heard, and Ginny immediately snaps her head up to Mike, whose eyes immediately take on guilt.

Ginny’s hand comes to rest on the back of Kaia’s head, running it comfortingly over her curls.

“No, no, no,” Mike pleads, making his way over, and bending down with a wince, to get eye level with his little girl. “Daddy loves it. We’re gonna hang it on the fridge, and everyone can admire what a great job you did.”

She peeks out at him through long lashes, her hand still clinging to her mother’s shirt, before she launches herself into Mike’s arms, squeezing him tightly to her with her little hands, but a strength he knows she got from Ginny.

He gives her a kiss on the forehead.

“You better like it, it took me like…three years to make,” she says with such an attitude, it has Ginny snickering again.

“Three years, huh? That’s more than half your life, little girl,” he says with a poke to her stomach.

“Well it took me forever,” she says with a flourish of her hands. And he can’t help the smile that overtakes him at that moment.

“I think it is strikingly accurate, Kaia bean,” Ginny praises her, and she beams up at her mom. “Why don’t you go get your glove, and I bet Daddy’ll play catch with you before dinner.”

She runs out of the room with a screech of excitement, never at a loss for energy. And Mike moves to stand back up.

“Need some help, old man?” Ginny teases, offering her hand to him to get him upright.

“That picture does not look like me,” he says with a whisper, not wanting Kaia to hear him, as he grabs the crayon drawing from where he’d placed it on the bed. “I look like…”

“A cousin from Duck Dynasty? Or Cousin It? Take your pick,” she peers at it behind him, over his shoulder, resting her chin on him. 

“It touches the floor. She made my beard touch the floor.”

“See, all those years I told you the beard was bad, and it takes your daughter to point it out for you to finally see the light,” she teases, tugging on it for good measure.

He turns his head to look at her, “You love the beard.”

“Oh yes, I _love_ the beard,” she sarcastically spits out.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what you said last night,” he says with a wink, before he’s loudly interrupted.

“Daddy, I’m ready, come on!”

“The artist has beckoned,” she motions out the door for him.

“Thank God her throw is better than her art skills,” he says with a bemused grin, heading out to his curly haired little girl, bouncing up and down to play with him.


	47. Chapter 47

"Ginny Lawson. Has a nice ring to it don't you think?"

Evelyn raises her eyebrows, a knowing smirk playing on her lips, as Ginny reaches for her wine glass, taking a large gulp, and nearly choking on the gold courage.

“Did you start drinking before I got here?” She says with an incredulous look thrown at her enthusiastic friend. “Because I’m pretty sure the names Ginny and Lawson will only ever be next to each other in a professional setting.” The assurance sounds weak even to her own ears, but she stands her ground all the same.

“Oh please, you’ll be moaning each other’s names by the end of the season,” Evelyn says with a flick of her wrist towards her, right as Ginny takes another drink, causing her to actually choke on the drink this time.

She’s sputtering, trying to catch her breath, as her throat burns, the wine’s rough travel down giving her time to wrap her head around Evelyn’s prediction, read more like a prophecy, sealed with a smile that held the truth.

“If I even play this season,” she mutters to herself, eyes downcast to her injured arm, held still by a black sling, seemingly mocking her every single time she made a move.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘We’re just friends,’” she tries, but Evelyn’s smile never falters, like she’s been privy to top secret information that not even Ginny has been read in on. “Plus, he’s got Rachel.” 

Her brow furrows at the last part, as her finger traces the lip of her glass, around and around, ending up right back at the start, an endless loop.

Evelyn shakes her head, dismissing the idea completely. “Okay,” she says, standing up to head into the kitchen.

Ginny fumbles with the strap of her sling, a nervous habit she’d picked up recently, a fidgety tick in place of her ability to constantly be on the move.

“So how’s billionaire boy?” Her friend yells out, as she enters back in with another bottle of wine.

Ginny snorts at the mention of Noah. “I wouldn’t know. Haven’t seen him since…,” and she pauses, wanting to say since he ran into Mike at the hospital, but throwing Evelyn even more proof of something beyond a friendship seems dangerous.

“Since he met the guy you’d really like between your legs?”

Ginny can’t help but bring her glass up to hide the blush on her face. “You’re the absolute worst, you know that, right?” She says with a groan of torture on the cusp of her lips, released shortly before the knowing laugh of her friend rings out into the room.

“Okay, but seriously. What’s going on?” She fixes her with a concerned look.

Ginny heaves a heavy sigh, placing her glass down. “I don’t know. Everything’s just…weird, right now. Up in the air.”

“We talkin’ Mike or baseball?” A fair question at this point.

“Both,” she admits.

“Baseball, I have no doubt you’ll be back,” Evelyn assures her, reaching out to place a comforting hand on her knee. Ginny stares at her, pleading eyes, begging for an answer no one can give her. “But I’m not one for big speeches on that matter, that’s a job for…”

“Mike,” Ginny murmurs, his name coming out more like a vow than a regret.

“The man’s a disaster,” Evelyn claims with a snicker. “But…” she pauses, as if contemplating whether to reveal her cards.

“But what?”

“He’s a complete marshmallow when it comes to you,” she says in complete seriousness.

Ginny scoffs. “He is not…,” Evelyn raises her eyebrows for what feels like the millionth time since they started this conversation. 

“He is so sticky, sweet on you, Gin. In fact, I take it back. It’ll never be Ginny Lawson. More like Mike Baker,” she says with a wink.

A slight blush overtakes Ginny, a lingering of confusion over Mike’s feelings still a puzzle, missing pieces waiting to be put together. But with a scrunch of her face at the name presented to her, she takes a sip of wine.

“Baker-Lawson,” she mutters into her glass.

“I KNEW IT!” Evelyn cheers.


	48. Chapter 48

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. MIKE WAKE UP!! WHY DO WE HAVE MATCHING WEDDING BANDS???!!!"

Mike rolls over, shielding his eyes from the incessant light streaming in through the windows, a groan escaping him, as Ginny’s cold toes wedge in between his shins.

He jumps, her hand snaking up his chest, the metal of her ring leaving a trail of promises represented by the figure sitting pretty on her finger. His eyes are shut tightly, but he can feel her chin coming to rest on him, her eyes warming his face with their gaze, her lips spreading into a soft smile, as she stares up at him.

“One of these days you’re gonna kill me with your shrieking, Baker,” he says, before he leaves a matching trail up the smooth of her back, running over the ridges of her spine, the ring dipping, up and over, before it plants itself firmly on her shoulder.

“Baker-Lawson,” she corrects him with soft murmur into his chest.

A smile shrouded by his beard makes its way across his face. “Right, right, now that you mention it, I do remember a wedding a few weeks ago,” he teases, moving his hands to rest on her sides, gripping her softly. “Something about forever…”

“How you promised to put up with me forever, shrieking wake up calls and all,” she taps her finger out against him, punctuating her words with literal feeling.

“Should I be offended that this one included you pretending to have forgotten that small detail? That can really take a hit to one’s ego, you know?”

“Good thing yours is so big, one hit won’t do much damage,” she says with a laugh.

He peeks one eye open at that, opening his mouth to respond, until her finger comes to rest against his lips, silencing him with a shake of her head, her eyes quickly closing with amusement. “Too easy,” and she can feel his laugh against her finger.

“So what’s on the agenda for today?” His wandering hands moving to frame her face, tangled in a mess of curls. 

She playfully narrows her eyes at him. “You promised…” she warns, her face adorably angry between his hands.

“Hmm, I seem to have forgotten,” he plays, the furrow of his brows gently smoothed with the glide of her finger, relaxing him further.

“Yeah, I hear the mind’s the first to go in your old age,” she huffs, moving to get off of him.

“Well, at least it’s not my body and my big…”

This time she finds her whole hand covering his mouth, a playful bite against her palm, and his eyes filled with a mirthful admiration.

She hesitantly lifts her hand, as if convinced he’ll still proceed with his comment, she raises her eyebrow, a silent warning.

“Fine,” he concedes, and she jumps, causing another groan from him. “Let’s go get your puppy.” The grin on his face suggesting that he wasn’t really as put out as he was pretending to be, as she stumbled off of him to throw on some clothes.

He sits up in bed, watching her scurry from the closet to the bathroom, before peeking her head out at him. The bright smile of his wife bookended with dimples, the only proof he needed that he was doing something right.

“I love you, Mr. Baker-Lawson, no forgetting,” she says with a wink, before disappearing again.

And he can’t help the goofy grin on his face at the name, twisting the ring on his finger. Because he was just as much her’s as she was his. _Forever._


	49. Chapter 49

_"Is it Ginny?"_ He heard Rachel's voice break on her name. _"Damn it Mike! Just be honest with me, with yourself. Are you in love with Ginny Baker?"_

He moved to frustratingly scrub his hands over his face, wincing at the sound of Rachel uttering Ginny’s name with such an acerbic bite. It contained an intonation to it that didn’t so much end on a question, as a known fact being thrown out in hopes that the inclination was wrong, that she’d been seeing something that wasn’t actually there.

Except it was there.

“Rachel,” he tries, casting his eyes downward, not wanting to even acknowledge the accusation being thrown at him. That somehow, once again, he was being blamed for this relationship going south. He was trying, damn it. And _she_ just…she wouldn’t let him.

Not on purpose, of course. When she’d gotten injured, he’d let the guilt consume him, letting his head fall into his hands as her future was narrated on television for all the world to see, bets being made on whether or not she’d ended her career.

But as he’d looked at her in that hospital bed, swallowed by the gown adorning her thin frame, arm tightly secured to her side, and big brown eyes pleading with him to cut the multitude of platitudes that had been paid to her from everyone else, and issue her to the truth. He’d vowed he wasn’t going to leave her.

The awkwardness from before, _that_ night, had been pushed away, buried to the back of his mind, and the occasional sweeping flutter of his heart when he’d accidentally brush against her hand as they walked, or the stray curl that found its way tangled around his finger as she slept against him on the couch after a particularly grueling day of physical therapy, it was innocent.

He started purposely ignoring the calls of his ex-wife, the appeal of a quick fuck lost on him quite a while ago, if he were being honest with himself. They were still operating under the guise of _trying,_ but these days the only thing he found trying was summoning the emotions to actually care anymore.

Before Ginny had shown up, he had wanted nothing more than another chance. Convinced that if he more attentive, more…something, that he could have his life back, the comfortable, the stable. But as he looked up at Rachel, red hair perfectly styled into false curls, her eyes probing him for an answer she already knew the answer to, her disappointment in him evident in every pore of her body, he realized he was over it.

Somewhere along the way, he’d come to realize that it wasn’t him. Hell, it wasn’t even Rachel. It was _them_. Together. It wasn’t right. Neither of them had wanted to put in the effort to make it work the first time around, the gradual fade of young love morphing into a half-assed marriage that was determined to fail way before Rachel had climbed into bed with someone else.

He’d convinced himself that that was what he had with Ginny too. Someone new that made him feel young, an alluring flame that would eventually flicker into darkness, leaving him cold and alone. 

But Ginny was literal sunshine.

The beaming of her dimples dancing across her face, casting its light onto him, letting him bask in her glow. They teased and joked, argued and fought, but they also… _loved_. 

And that was the difference.

The prickling of love had been steadily stabbing him since the moment she’d slapped his ass. The pain persisting well past the initial admiration and astonishment at her ability, filtering onto a personal level of trust, and infiltrating through his bloodstream to the heart of the matter.

He moves to open his mouth to speak, and his phone rings. Rachel’s eye flicker to the screen on the counter by them, Ginny’s dimpled smile glaring back at her.

“Answer it,” she says. “Tell her how you feel.”

And swiftly exits his house, his life.

“Hey,” he says with a sigh of relief into the phone.

“So I finally saw the episode you were talking about the other night” she says with a giggle. “And I think my message would’ve been, ‘Ginny, this is the bad place, you’re being tricked.’”

“Rookie move, you never would’ve finished writing that,” he teases, and he can hear her frustrated sigh.

“Okay, smart ass, what would you have written?”

He answers with the first thing he can think of, the only thing he would be thinking of when facing eternity.

“Find Ginny.”

 _Yep,_ _Mike Lawson was in love with Ginny Baker._


	50. Chapter 50

"Hey Lawson, we need to talk about you know...''.

"I ran into Noah in the elevator, was he with you?"

That has her stopping dead in her tracks in the middle of the hall.

“What?”

“Nice guy, a little tall, but hey, if you like that sort of thing,” he goads her with the details of a man she’s well aware of. She can’t help the jutting of her bottom lip, her face scrunching together in combination of hurt, confusion, and anger.

His grin suggests that he’s playing, but his eyes tell a different story, as they glisten hurt, roaming over her, stopping at the tug of her bottom lip into her mouth, the anxiety etching itself over her.

“Thought you were _‘good’_?” She sneers back at him, his avoidance of speaking about what happened, any of it, resembling more of a child than the old man she so affectionately called him.

“Oh, I am,” he assures her, crossing his arms, as if shielding himself whatever she was bound to throw at him.

“So why were you in the hotel?” She stares at him with a tilt of her head, suggesting she already knows the answer to that question, a guilty look spreading across his face in the shade of red. “That’s what I thought,” she says with a disappointed nod, before turning to leave.

He moves to grab her, stop her. “Ginny,” he pleadingly whispers, but she yanks her arm out of his way.

“Not here,” she yelps, the hurt tinging her voice. “I’ve got a…we’ve got a game.”

He moves in, pushing her back at against the wall, her eyes grow big, searching the hall for prying eyes. “Mike,” she warns, not wanting to continue this conversation any longer, despite her having brought it up.

“No,” he all but growls, the beard adding the effect of an angry bear. “It’s not…what you think.”

She moves her head back, her ponytail digging into the back of her head from the pressure of the wall, but she searches his face, asking for answers.

“I went to the hotel last night,” he sighs, gripping her hips in a way that felt way too intimate for the public place they were standing, but damn if she was going to make him stop.

“Yeah, I know, got that,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

He just shakes his head. “See, always interrupting me,” he says with a half laugh, recalling a moment from _that_ night.

She ducks her head, nodding for him to continue.

“I came for _you_. I was at _your_ door,” he admits, and she whips her face up, meeting his eyes with shock. 

“What?”

“He was leaving, had a shit eating grin on his face, and I just…you made your choice, so I left…shared an elevator with the man,” he says as if he’d completely lost his mind.

“Mike,” she starts. “He was in my room, and we…”

“Oh fuck, I don’t need to the details,” he backs away from her, releasing her hips. “I umm, I gotta go get ready,” he says, frustratingly running his hands through his beard.

“I didn’t sleep with him,” she says, barely above a whisper, not wanting to scream that detail down the echoing halls of her teammates. But she knows he hears her, because he stops, freezes in place.

She walks up behind him, gently placing a hand on his forearm, the veins swelling underneath her touch.

“Talk after the game?” She suggests, a quiet smile shared between them.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she says with a dimpled grin, releasing his arm, and walking away, just as he’s intercepted. Throwing her a nod before disappearing into the office.


	51. Chapter 51

"I think Blip knows..."

Ginny casually whispers at Mike as she reaches for the wine set out on the Sanders’ kitchen counter.

Mike squints at her, a guffaw of sorts coming out of his mouth, convinced there was no way his friend had a clue. After all, they’d been careful, ridiculously careful. He’s used more self-restraint in public than he ever had during these last few months.

Like now, as Ginny stood against him, dark jeans practically painted onto her, a simple white t-shirt with a v-neck that dipped so dangerously low, he swore she’d done on it purpose just to get his blood flowing. A gold necklace dangling over her cleavage, taunting him with the notion that it got to hang so close to fate, while he was forced to gawk at a distance.

Most nights when he went out with her as _“friends,”_ he found his lips on her before the door could even be shut when they got home. The tease of the night, look but don’t touch, and hell don’t even look too long, or else alert everyone around them that they’d gone from starting games together to finishing each other off in bed…or the kitchen counter…or against his floor to ceiling windows.

She peeks up at him over her wine glass. “Let me rephrase that. Blip knows,” she says with a sip, setting her glass down in frustration, pulling her curls back, before they flopped over to one side.

Mike glances around him, spotting Evelyn with her face nearly smashed against the window, peering in at them.

“Why is that, Ginny?” He asks with a knowing grin, stepping into her space even more until his leg is wedged in between both of her’s, the counter offering a shield to the Mrs. standing at the window, watching their every move.

She moves to take another sip, but he grasps the stem of the glass, lowering it back down to the counter. “Why Ginny?”

Letting out of breath of air that wisps across his face, the scent of her wine ghosting across him, the taste of her mouth so close.

“Evelyn _might_ have heard something from me,” she says with a shy, dimpled grin.

“Is that so?” He asks with a closed mouthed smile, a tilt of his head - the beard tickling her nose, causing it to twitch in a way he found adorable.

“She practically pried it out of me, you know how she is,” she admits with a shrug, causing her necklace to move, catching the attention of his eyes.

He nods. “I do.” Placing his hands on her hips, sliding her ever so close. 

“It was bound to happen, you know,” she rambles, her eyes alight with excitement and nervousness. “But this is a good thing. I think,” she glances up at him, finding confirmation in his eyes.

“So what I’m hearing is that I’m now allowed to do this,” he interrupts himself, capturing her lips with a soft groan.

The shriek of Evelyn heard through the glass.


	52. Chapter 52

"Ginny please tell me you're not seriously dating your Captain?" Janet Baker said.

Ginny couldn’t even act surprised at her mom’s suggestion, taking in the address having been given to them upon their visit, the giant house of glass reflecting back a myriad of reasons why Ginny had refused for her to come out and help after her injury, the assurance that she was being taken care of thrown at her several times during the past few months.

She looks down at herself, wondering if her mom can tell just by looking at her. An emblazoned scarlet letter, spelling out LAWSON protruding from her. The night at Boardner’s, choosing to suffocate her rule of no ballplayers sealing her fate with the touch of Mike’s lips, an ignored phone call, and a night spent back at her hotel.

Their reality waking upon them in the form of a voicemail throwing a wrench into their plan, and an awkward veil of things left unsaid floating between them for a month, leaving her with a sick feeling every time she rolled over to the empty side of her bed - the weight of their decision hanging over them. Culminating into a possible no-hitter in the fall that had her screaming in pain, x-rays and tests that left her speechless, with only Mike to offer any form of solace, of support.

“Mom,” she moves to broach the subject, just as Mike and Kevin come back into the living room, drinks in hand and smiles plastered on their faces, as if they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. It was in direct contrast of Ginny’s expression shared with her mother. The temperature of the room bordering on an icy freeze and a sweltering heat threatening to boil over.

Mike takes a seat by Ginny, far too close for her mother’s liking judging by the raise of her eyebrow at his hand coming to rest on the small of her back underneath the large hoodie of his she was wearing, handing her her water, before grabbing his beer and taking a long swig, hoping to ease the tension he’d walked into.

“So Ginny,” Kevin says with a forced cheeriness to his voice. Janet glances at him before zeroing in on Mike and Ginny, her eyes sweeping over them, as if searching for a tell to nail them to the wall right then and there. “How’s your arm?”

She knows Mike can feel her stiffen next to him, as his fingers gently sweep over her back in a comforting swell, burrowing their feeling inside her.

Painting on a smile, she places her water down, exposing the trail of Mike’s fingers to her mother as she leans over, leaving him quickly pulling back, settling for just the touch of his leg against her’s. Leaning back, she sinks further into her hoodie, pulling the sleeves to cover her hands hoping to resend the mention of her arm.

“It’s good,” she offers.

“So you’ll be ready for spring training then?” And the question is innocent enough, not pushing for information, so much as attempting to jump start a conversation about anything, eliminating the awkwardness of the four of them, together, in one room.

Ginny worries her lip, the eyes of her mother squinting at her, the loss of Mike’s hand leaving a stinging where it had once been, a yearning for the comfort lost. 

“Actually,” she starts, and as if reading her mind, Mike grips her knee, the gentle pressure steadying her nerves. “No, I won’t be at spring training,” she admits with a shake of her head, her curls swaying with her over her shoulders, a brief glance at Mike to find him smiling back at her, a squeeze to her leg, letting her know he wasn’t leaving.

She looks down, not wanting to see the reaction.

“Oh wow, recovery is that long?” Kevin asks, oblivious to what’s going on, as her mom waits with baited breath, her silence screaming at Ginny.

She shakes her head at the question. Not meeting his eyes, anyone’s eyes, instead focusing on her sleeve, the soft material sliding over her shaky hands, pushing the material under her nail, torturing herself, delaying the inevitable. 

Mike’s beard scratches against her cheek as he leans in, his words ghosting over her ear, and she closes her eyes against the feel of him so close, steeling herself for what came next.

“Mom,” the title coming out shaky. “I’m…umm, I won’t be going to spring training because…” she peeks at Mike and he nods at her, his thumb sliding over the inseam of her workout pants, indenting his comfort in a criss-crossed pattern into her skin - intertwined threads of life left embedded within her.

Ginny can hear her mom’s intake of breath in the silence, just as the exhale of her _“I’m pregnant,”_ is uttered.


	53. Chapter 53

"Jesus, Mike! What the hell are you doing here?"

He’s planted right outside her room, sprawled out in an uncomfortable looking position, propped up by the door, with a steady hand balancing him to the ground. His hair appears disheveled, like he’d run his hands through a couple hundred times, but a sleepy grin appears, and she wonders if alcohol had been involved in this stakeout.

“I came to see you, Rookie,” he says as if completely obvious, as if she finds him camped out a few times a week and this is nothing new.

She adjusts her weight on her heels, her toes pinched and screaming in protest, becoming acutely aware of his line of vision, as he takes in the long expanse of her legs exposed to him in the short dress adorning her toned body tonight.

He drums his fingers on the floor, containing their affinity to wander, distracting them from reaching out and touching her.

She contemplates moving to sit next to him, but she opts to move beside him, her leg brushing up against the leather of his jacket and he flops his head back against the door with a thud, her personal brand of torture working all too well on him.

“Watch it,” she warns, as she opens the door, only softly giggling when he stumbles in balance, almost laid out flat in her doorway.

“Careful, Baker,” he says with a bark of laughter, staring up at her from the floor.

“Would you just get in here,” her horsey laugh bellowing through the hall.

He maneuvers himself up with some cricks and cracks, before he’s standing before her, a whisper away from her, no trace of alcohol present at all.

They let the silence envelop them, her arms coming to wrap around herself, before she’s had enough, kicking her heels off, and lowering herself back to their normal height difference, whipping herself forward to gather all her hair and piling it up on top of her head. She meets his eyes again, and she swears, he’s expecting her to strip down in front of him too.

“So uhh, hot date tonight?” He gestures towards her dress, the last piece of evidence of her night out. She can hear the jealousy hinted in his words, lacking accusation, but tinged with a kind of hurt that could only come from months of standing by her side as she rehabbed her arm back to strength.

“You could say that,” she says with a knowing grin, her dimple popping out in a tell of her amusement.

“Bet he didn’t have a beard,” he nudges her with his arm, before walking past her and seating himself on the couch.

She turns to look at him with a shrug. “Nope, no beard. But Evelyn is a pretty hot date.” His face glows with satisfaction.

Tracing the lines of the carpet with her toe, she wades around. “So what’s the plan for tonight?”

“Why don’t you go get changed into the sweats you want to be wearing and I’ll tell you.”

She doesn’t even try to fight the smile that appears, before quickly changing out of the offending material, and into her usual attire for bed.

Making her way out of the bathroom, she sees Mike has his feet propped up on the coffee table, and she meanders over to sit next to him, only to find something in her spot.

“What’s this?” she moves to pick up the small package.

“You didn’t think I forgot, did you?”

“Well your mind is slipping in your old age,” she teases, as she flops down next to him, holding the box.

“You’re the one getting older, Rook. I’m just getting more attractive,” he says, straightening in his seat for her admire, with a raise of his eyebrows.

She lightly smacks him on the chest.

“Ow. Twenty-four has made you mean,” he mocks hurt. “Just open your gift.”

She tears into the paper like a 5 year old on Christmas, but hesitates as she gets to the box, gently lifting the top to reveal the gift. Her eyes brim with tears, and she turns to look at him, a slight blush running up his face.

“Happy Birthday, Ginny.”


	54. Chapter 54

"Just one more push Mrs. Lawson..."

“Baker,” she grunts, flopping back against the bed, shaking her head. “Don’t give him credit…” she breathes heavily, wincing in pain. “He hasn’t put a ring on it.”

Mike reaches out, pulling back the sweaty curl that had matted itself to her forehead. “One huge life event at a time, Gin,” he teases, knowing full well that had it been up to him, he would’ve married her ten times over already. It had been upon her insistence that the topic not be brought up until after the baby was born and she was back in the game. They hadn’t even been a couple when she found out she was pregnant, so the jump to marriage hadn’t been one she was willing to make back then.

“Okay, Ginny, one more push,” the amended statement comes at her again.

She lets out a whimper, the pain persisting but the pressure of her hand gripping his weakening. It had been a long labor, and Ginny had opted to forgo the drugs, a move that was slowly showing as regret across her face thirty-two hours later, and still one push away from motherhood.

He leans forward, his nose sliding across her cheekbone, bringing their joined hand between them, his beard scratching against her ear. “She’s almost here,” he whispers, and she shakes her head against him. 

She squeezes her eyes tightly shut. “I can’t,” moves from her mouth, and he knows she’s tired, exhausted beyond belief.

He smiles against her. “You’re the strongest person I know,” and he feels her squeeze his hand with a roll of pain. “You’ve got this, Gin,” the last encouraging words she needed before bearing down.

He swears the room goes silent, enveloping him in a moment that he became a father. The tiny wails of his baby girl surround him, the whirl of the staff all around him, but all he sees is a mass of dark curls being gently soothed by Ginny, pressing her to her chest, soft kisses sprinkled over her.

His mouth moves to work, but nothing but air escapes him, his eyes unable to leave his little girl even as she’s taken across the room, he follows, refusing to let her out of his sight.

As if in a trance, he finds himself once again gazing at Ginny, the tiny bundle resting in her arms. He moves to stand over them, his finger extended to trace over the soft features of her face. Her lip twitching with the tickle of his fingertip, revealing a single dimple, and a little flick of her hand, that he catches and lets her grip, her entire palm not even big enough to wrap around his finger, but big enough to worm its way so deeply into his heart, that he’ll undoubtedly never be able to say no to her.

“She’s so beautiful,” Ginny says with a sigh, transfixed on the two of them interacting.

“Looks like her mama,” he responds immediately, his very own little Ginny rests before him, exact duplicate of the woman he’d fallen so quickly for, his new baby girl no different in her tactics. 

His comment earning him a kiss from the original. it’s soft, sweet, a thank you of sorts, that has him pulling away with a goofy grin of admiration for this woman he can’t quite wrap his head around.

“You want to hold her,” she offers, and he looks at her with pure terror written all over him, almost taking a step back.

“I…I don’t…”and she laughs at him.

“You won’t break her, Mike,” she says while lifting her slowly, and he instinctually moves forward, carefully taking her into his arms.

The weight of the moment not accurately captured with how light she feels in his arms. She stirs upon the transfer, and he moves her closer to his face, his voice washing over her, all those nights he found himself speaking to her while he thought Ginny was fast asleep, soothing her discomfort.

Ginny she leans back, exhausted from the day’s events, but the content smile remains on her face as she watches them.

“Hey, sweet girl,” he all but coos at her. “I’m…” he hesitates. “I’m your dad,” he says with a surge of pride, a title he never thought he’d have, but was granted thanks to Ginny. 

“Happy Birthday, Kaia,” he whispers, placing a sweet kiss on her forehead.


	55. Chapter 55

"Are fucking kidding me..."

Mike cursed as he hit traffic, coming to a complete stop and effectively making him late. He hit the steering wheel, his car taking the beating for his frustration. Reaching for his phone on the passenger seat, the leather jacket he’d thrown on strained at the reach. Checking for messages, the screen illuminates to a picture Ginny had taken last month, her mouth is quirked into some silly face, and he’s not even looking, his gaze completely on her, a soft smile hidden in his beard at her antics.

But no messages.

He tosses the phone back into the seat, running his hand over his face, exhaustion stretching over him as his lack of sleep last night catches up to him.

It had been a quiet night, he’d watched TV, periodically checking the time, trying to keep his eyes open as long as he could, before he reluctantly dragged himself to bed. Settling his phone in the spot next to him, illuminating the screen every time he found himself rolling over to empty space.

When the alarm had sounded, he’d gotten little to no sleep, and the idea of functioning in the world seemed a heavy task. And he should’ve taken the hint.

On his way to the bathroom his toe had caught on the edge of the doorway, letting out a litany of curses. He’d squeezed too much toothpaste out, and spent way too much time trying to get the goo back in before throwing the whole thing against the wall.

The coffee maker hadn’t been set, so the timer hadn’t made anything, leaving him running on a caffeine-less morning, the clock on his oven mocking him, as he realized he didn’t even have time to quickly make something.

At that he’d thrown his head back, as if asking what he’d done to deserve this.

Stumbling to his car, he’d found his gas tank low, his stop to refuel serving him up just enough time to hit morning traffic.

Inch by small inch he’d finally made it to the stadium, late, angry, and annoyed with everything and everyone.

Entering the clubhouse, he’d all but thrown his bag at his chair, ripping off his jacket, and biting everyone’s head off who dared make a jab at him being late.

Blip takes in his disheveled state. “Rough night?”

He literally growls at him.

“I had 13 boys running around the house and Evelyn and Ginny wine drunk, I should be the one in a mood.”

Mike just glares at him.

“You missed her, didn’t you?”

“Stop,” he warns.

“Admit it, man, you can’t sleep without her.”

His loud “SHUT UP” was heard, just as she walked in, the guys throwing her a warning look, that didn’t even have her smile faltering.

She saunters up to him, full grizzly bear on display, his growl scarier than his bite. She leans against the wood of his cubby.

“So how was your night?” She teases, glancing down at his socks with a snicker. He looks down and finds they don’t even match.

“Ugh, fuck,” he says, letting out a deep sigh.

“That good, huh?”

“It was _fine_ ,” he grits out the last word, making eye contact with a silent plea.

Blip raises his eyebrows at them.

Grabbing his hand, she drags the half dressed grouch into her closet.

He immediately plants his hands on her hips, as she moves to pat his face, her fingers running through his beard.

“You are such a mess without me,” she jokes, and he buries his head in her neck, a soft grunt of reluctant admittance to her claim.

“Don’t worry, old man, I’m all yours tonight,” she promises.

He separates from her, a grin on his face. “You missed me, huh?”

“Maybe,” she says with a casual shrug of her shoulder. 

“Maybe?” He says, pulling her close again, his hands framing her face, and she grabs onto the belt loops of his jeans.

“No more than you missed me,” she murmurs, and he runs his finger over the indent of her dimple.

“Then you must have missed me a lot.”

“A lot?”

“A lot,” he whispers onto her lips. 

“Mmm,” she moans into him.

“Plus, it was too quiet without your jackhammer snoring,”he mocks. 

Fully accepting the teasing hit to the chest from her, in exchange for the cute blush she tries to hide. 

_God he missed her._


	56. Chapter 56

"Stay the hell away from Ginny," Mike said to Rachel.

He storms past where she’s standing in his house, pacing by the counter, bringing his fingers to his eyes, attempting to dig the image of Ginny’s disappointed face out of his mind. The slight pout of lips, her brown eyes brimming with tears, but her shoulders pulled back, her head held high, as she attempted to act unaffected.

A simple, _“I hope you and Rachel are happy,”_ were the only words she spoke to him the entire day, instead responding with shakes and nods, as if they were playing an endless game.

Rachel’s once smug look fades to irritation, as she crosses her arms. Her mood prickling at the sound of Ginny’s name.

He turns on her, his forehead wrinkling with rage, pointing his phone at her like an accusatory finger.

“What did you say to her?” He seethes.

“I didn’t tell her anything that wasn’t true,” she spits with a raise of her eyebrow.

He steps closer, the heat of his rage coming off of him in waves, as he punctuates his words. “What did you say to her?”

Rachel didn’t back down, instead baiting him. “Why do you care, Mike? Hmm?”

He straightens up at his question, the one he’d been asking himself a lot lately. 

“Because I have to work with her, Rachel. If we’re not communicating then we’re not winning,” he explains to her as if she’s a child who doesn’t understand a lick about the relationship between pitcher and catcher.

Rachel gives a sideways grin, bringing her head down with a sad shake. “Oh yeah? And you call up all your other pitchers late at night too? Bring them food, go to all their doctor’s appointments?”

“Rachel,” he warns, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“I just told her that we were happy, we were trying to make it work, and it would help if she wasn’t around so much,” she admits.

“You what?” His eyes growing wide, and the sudden avoidance of Ginny all day making sense. His suggestion of tacos afterwards earning him a shake of the head, as she quickly slid by him, his skin tingling where she’s brushed against him. “Damn it, Rachel.”

“It’s true, Mike. How are we supposed to try when you’re trying more with her?”

He wants to refute it. He wants to tell her that she’s crazy. That this isn’t his fault. That he feels nothing for Ginny. But that’s a lie. He’s known it since the moment he showed up at her hotel room. His body may have been with Rachel, but his mind, his heart had been several floors up with Ginny.

“We’re done.” Realization washing over him, a sardonic laugh paired with his admittance. Rachel looks at him oddly, before he grabs his keys and turns to head out again.

“Where are you going?” She yells.

He reaches for the handle of the door, taking a deep breath, bringing with it a knowing smile.

“Where I should’ve gone months ago.”


	57. Chapter 57

"Evelyn, stop freaking out and help me find my wedding ring!"

Ginny’s face is stricken with panic, frantically knocking down pillows, wedging her hands into the creases of the couch. Coming up with nothing more than some stray pieces of cereal that had escaped her grasp as she ate them like popcorn while spread out, limbs likely hanging off of Mike on any given night.

She slaps the cushion, frustration tearing through her. Her curls tumble into her face, and she yanks them back, getting down on all fours, ass up in the air as she searches underneath the low couch.

“A little help, Ev,” she begs, as her friend stands up from the chair next to Ginny, heels clanking against the hardwood floor, as she moves to kneel on the ground.

“Not until you tell me,” she stubbornly holds out, crossing her arms. Ginny flops back onto her haunches, hands resting on her knees, exasperated sigh escaping her.

“Fine,” she agrees with a shake of her head, pursed lips following.

Evelyn’s eyes grow big, waiting for the the words, eager anticipation rolling off of her, settling into panic by the time it hits Ginny.

“What do you want to know?” She tries to stall, her thumb moving to twist the rings that should be on her finger, a nervous habit that had started around the time the diamond had made its way onto her finger, and persisted even as another band joined its place.

Evelyn leans back grabbing the offending object from her purse.

“Explain this,” she all but squeaks, holding out an empty pregnancy test box.

Ginny makes a quick grab of the box.

“You went through my trash?”

“It’s not really going through your trash when I use the bathroom and it’s sitting right on _top_ of the trash,” she explains with a shake of her hand, as if these are golden rules that have been etched into stone, and have eliminated her guilt on a technicality.

“Remind me why we’re friends again,” she taunts, moving to leave the conversation and continue her search in the kitchen.

“Because you love me,” Evelyn assures from across the counter.

Ginny moves to stuff the box into the recycling bin, crushing the shape of the box along with any excitement the contents of the box could’ve promised.

She glares at her friend with narrowed eyes.

“Please, Ev. He’s going to be home soon,” she begs. Checking the sink area, making sure she didn’t set them down when she washed her hands.

“Fine, but you’re not getting out of this. We’ll talk and look,” she declares, moving to open the fridge.

“You think my rings are sitting next to the juice?”

Evelyn gives her a look, and Ginny concedes. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s me,” she says with a blush. “Any luck?”

“Nope,” she says with a pop of her lips.

Ginny’s on the floor again, moving her hands around, like she’ll feel the rings before she sees them.

“So…,” Evelyn broaches again. Opening cabinets Ginny would never have any business using other than the one stocked with glassware. All cooking left up to her husband, for fear of fingers and eyebrows going missing.

“There’s nothing to tell, Ev,” Ginny grunts. “It was negative.”

“Oh sweetie,” Evelyn moves to comfort her, just as the front door opens, and Mike walks in with an incredulous look on his face, as his wife crawls around on the floor like a toddler.

“What’s going on?” He immediately asks, and Ginny heaves a sigh, agilely moving herself upright and quickly walking up to him. She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a hug, burying her face in his neck, as quiet tears spill from her eyes, his arms come to wrap around her, a confused look passing from him to Evelyn, as he squeezes her tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she incoherently murmurs into him over and over again.

He pulls her back, pushing her curls away from her face, his thumbs coming to soak up her tears.

“I…lost…my rings,” she chokes out, the emotions of the day clinging onto her and refusing to let go of their vice grip.

His eyes trace over her, a knowing smile forming through his beard, and he traces her cheekbone, down her neck, and she finds herself leaning into his touch, as he reaches her collarbone, fingers tangling into the chain wrapped around her neck, a soft weight lifting from her, slowly being brought up to reveal her rings, having been dangling at her chest the entire time.

“You forgot to put them back on after the game, Gin,” he explains, causing a watery smile form her, and a short laugh of relief.

Ginny turns back to see Evelyn smiling behind her. She grabs her purse, and moves to leave.

“I’m glad you found them, Ginny,” she says with a comforting hand on her back. “You’ll call me later,” she demands more than asks, and quickly exits.

“You okay?” He asks, seeing worry still present on her face.

She nods. “And here I thought you were the senile old man,” she teases herself.

He laughs with a squeeze of her shoulder, before linking their hands together. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yep,” she says holding up her rings still attached to the chain. “I’ve got everything I need,” she says with a smile.


	58. Chapter 58

As the date loomed closer, and Ginny’s stomach became rounder and rounder, Mike’s fear grew with every inch of her waist.

All the unanswered questions swirled in his brain whenever he laid eyes on Ginny, or held his hand over their growing daughter and she gave a swift kick right to his palm.

Having grown up without a father, he never wanted to be absent from his kid’s life for even a second. Going away to spring training and leaving Ginny behind had tested both his nerves, and the patience of every single teammate who had to put up with him. _I’m missing everything. I left her._ Played like bad song that wouldn’t leave his head, over and over again - slowly torturing him.

When he finally made it back home, Ginny wrapped up in his arms, he swore he was never leaving again.

Until he had to.

And every away game he treaded carefully, afraid if he stopped thinking about them for even a second, that would be the time she went into labor and he wasn’t there.

Because that was his biggest fear. That he’d miss out on the first moments of his daughter’s life, setting the tone for a lifetime of disaster and letdowns. He could see it so clearly, the scared, disappointed face of Ginny looking up at him, a look he never wanted to have been the cause of, letting down his girls. 

That morning had been normal. Good, even. He’d woken up to the shifting of the bed as Ginny tried to get comfortable, soft grunts of frustration causing him to smile before his eyes even fluttered open.

Turning his head, he sees her on her side, pillows surrounding her, and big brown eyes boring holes into him with her gaze.

His hand moves out, almost involuntarily, landing on the fabric of her shirt, rubbing small circles over her stomach. 

“Morning,” he greets her, his voice tinged with sleep.

“Your baby never wants me to sleep ever again,” she responds, her tone accusing, but her soft smile, hidden in her pillow, giving her away.

“Is that so?” He laughs, turning on his side, settling his head on her pillow, their noses a breath away from each other, while the rest of him lays barricaded by pillows from the rest of her body.

“Hmm,” she hums in confirmation.

He pushes a stray curl out of her face. “Well, we’ll just have to talk to her about that,” he teases.

Ginny rolls her eyes at him. “She’d probably listen to you. She already likes you better.”

“The girl’s got good taste,” he says with a wink, earning him another eye roll.

Her hands comes to run through his beard, her eyes studying him.

“Night game tonight?” She asks, her eyes focused on the path of her fingers.

“Yep,” he says, moving his forehead to rest against her’s, attempting to calm his anxiety over leaving her.

“At least it’s here,” she offers. “We’ll be fine,” and he acquiesces with a groan, pulling her closer.

He never even sees the text she sends him during the game, _“Umm Mike, my water just broke.”_ But when Skip walks out onto the field in the third inning, he _knows_ that something happened to Ginny, and he’s shedding his gear with shaky hands before he makes it to the dugout. His face paling and his knees groaning in protest from the sprint he makes to just get _there._

Because he refuses to let them down.


	59. Chapter 59

He finds her sitting in her chair, her weight balancing on her toes, her knee bobbing up and down. The fingernail of her thumb is being mangled by the teeth she’s sinking into her callused skin, as she moves her head down, grasping for the bill of her hat, squeezing it, as if containing the frustration.

Mike sneaks in, softly shutting the door, but it’s only after the click that she looks up, eyes darting around to see who had snuck up on her. She settles when warm brown eyes land on him, a silent sigh of relief fluttering out, and she goes back to staring at her feet.

“You okay?” He asks, knowing full well that the woman sitting before him is anything but.

She gives a half shrug, but she knows he’s not buying it.

He pulls up the chair next to her until their knees are almost touching.

“You know, I uhhh, tried to call you last night,” he starts, and she looks up at him, fighting back a a grin, and he leans back in his seat, moving to scratch his face underneath the beard.

“Yeah, sorry, I was with Evelyn,” she sheepishly gives an excuse, pulling at her hat to cover the blush, but her dimples give her away.

He nods, knowing that with today’s game, she probably had needed some girl time to sort through some things. It was the first game against the Cardinals since the pictures had been released. The thought curling his hand into a fist, his nails digging into the meaty flesh of his palm. The desire to knock the guy’s teeth in for what had happened, a very real threat that he having to rein in the closer they got to seeing him.

Letting out a breath he looks up to find her worrying her lip, her knee still bobbing up and down at lightening speed, as if unbeknownst to her - an involuntary tick that’s harnessing all her pent up anxiety.

He reaches out, steadying the flailing limb with a comforting hand, catching her attention.

“I could lose all control of my bat, a simple slip of the hand and it just happens to fly back and hit him,” he tries to tease, but he doesn’t even crack a smile, she just shakes her head at him.

When he’d found out that Trevor was the guy. He didn’t know what was stronger, the urge to hit him or the jealousy that had surged through him that this was the man, the ballplayer, who had gotten to date Ginny.

They had carefully weaved themselves into a friendship that had them spending most nights together, ending with her either curled around him on his couch or her voice the last thing he heard as he passed out with his phone pressed up against his ear. He knew how she took her coffee (with more cream that necessary, if you asked him), what position she slept in (on her side with her hands tucked underneath her head), the exact smile that indicated to him that he’d done something right, and the covering of her mouth when he’d made her laugh until her sides hurt.

But what he didn’t know, in that moment, was what to say. His offer to hurt him falling on deaf ears.

“What do you need from me?” He asks, knowing her well enough to know that asking her what she needs is better than offering something she doesn’t want.

She looks at him, studying him, and he becomes nervous under her gaze. His thumb moving over her kneecap, dipping into the grooves, tracing the edges of her bone.

“I just…,” she tries.

“Hate him?” He offers, because he certainly wouldn’t blame her if she did.

But she shakes her head again at him.

“He was the exception,” she says, this time firm, confident, staring him right in the eye, as if wanting to make sure that he understood what she was saying. 

Mike nods, that flare of jealousy sparking in him again.

“Evelyn says you only get one exception to the rule,” she reasons, with a slight shrug of her shoulders that has Mike removing his hand from her knee, leaning back with a scoot of his chair.

She grabs onto the arms of his chair, pulling herself into him, both her knees resting in between his wide spread legs, causing his eyes to go big.

“Is that so?” He asks, crossing his arms in front of her. But she reaches out and grabs his hand.

“Yeah. But see, I don’t need anymore exceptions if I don’t have the rule,” she says with a grin, as if she’d found a way to beat the system.

He leans in forward, with only enough space between them as their caps will allow, his minty breath causing a chill to run up her spine, tingling in the hand that’s got a hold of him.

“No more rule?” He breathes a silent plea against her.

“Nope,” she says with a pop.

“So what does that make me?” His lips twitch underneath his beard, and her eyes move to catch the grin.

“My poster boy?” She offers, and he can’t help the snigger that comes out of his mouth, catching her dimples in sight.

The knock at the door has them scrambling against the wheels of their chairs to separate.

“You guys plan on playing today?” Blips asks.

They mumble their responses, moving to get up.

“You ready?” Mike says with a hand coming to her shoulder and squeezing gently.

“Oh, I can’t wait to send them packing,” she assures them both.

“No exceptions?” Blips asks, a knowing look crossing his face.

She glances over at Mike, a warm smile bookended by radiant dimples spread across her face. 

“No exceptions.”


	60. Chapter 60

Ginny’s sitting at the kitchen table, her knee propped up on the chair, as she moves her food around the plate with her fork. The peas swirl into a pattern, escaping the prongs of her utensil, as she stares at their movement, refusing to look up into the eyes burning a hole into her at that moment.

Evelyn awkwardly coughs, trying to break the tension casting itself across the table, giving a look towards Blip to say something.

He all but grunts in frustration at her, until her eyes narrow, and he glances at the pair in front of him.

“So, guys,” he starts, but neither of them even look in his direction. “Last night, that was fun, huh?”

Ginny tenses at the mention of the night before, her fork clattering into the plate set before her, causing a rattling flitter of anger to stream from her. She visibly swallows, before clenching her jaw, her dimple making its angry appearance.

Mike tries to whisper her name across the table, his lack of subtlety lost on no one, as his audience sits captive.

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask Mike,” she suggests to the table, picking up her fork and violently stabbing a pea, before bringing the food to her mouth and aggressively chewing the green speck.

“Ginny,” he groans in frustration.

That catches her attention, and she looks up at him, malice in her eyes.

“No, Mike, go ahead, tell them about the blonde,” she motions to her friends. Evelyn’s eyes grow wide at Ginny’s admission, and Blip folds his hands in front of him, resting his head, as if waiting for more than an admission of jealousy to fly out of their mouths.

“Why do you care?” He shoots at her.

“I don’t,” she tries to say with a level of ambivalence, but fooling no one, least of all herself. “I just think that a better example should be set from our Ca _ptain_ when we go out in public.”

“That’s rich, Gin, considering I saw you practically grinding on Livan on the dance floor,” he aims back at her, his hands coming down on the table with bang loud enough to rattle his plate.

“I’m surprised you could see anything over the mountain of fake boobs pressed against your face,” she says with a sneer.

Blip tries to cut in, as Evelyn’s head moves back and forth like she’s watching a tennis match, but Mike isn’t backing down, his voice booming over his friend’s.

“Thought you had a no ballplayers rule? Guess that’s shot to hell. Not that you ever really stuck to that rule before only when it came to me…” and he instantly regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth.

Ginny balks, and the gulf of hurt swimming in her eyes isn’t lost on him.

“Okay, that’s enough dinner theatre for tonight,” Evelyn cuts in.

“Gin,” he tries, but Ginny’s pushing her chair out from under her, storming off into the other room before he can finish.

Evelyn’s moving to leave, twirling around to face Mike with a finger pointed right at him, her tiny frame hovering above his. “You better be thinking of one hell of an apology for her when she gets back,” she warns, before clacking away to find Ginny.

He pulls his hands over his face, his fingers shaking with regret as they comb over his beard.

Blips leans back in his chair, studying the disaster that is Mike.

“You should tell her,” he offers.

Mike’s hands fall to his lap. 

“Tell her what?”

“Well, for starters that you politely told that blonde to get the fuck away from you last night,” Blips laughs with a shake of his head.

“It doesn’t matter–”

“You’re so damn stupid,” Blip interrupts him, standing from the table and moving to grab two more beers. Setting one down in front of Mike. “You better tell her you love her, because I guarantee you if you don’t, Evelyn will,” he says with a raise of his brow, and takes a long pull of his drink.

Mike looks in the direction Ginny had gone.

“Is it that obvious?” He asks, causing Blip to laugh again.

“Nah, man. Only to everyone except G.”

Mike’s face tints with red, as he stands without a word, his sorrow and regret evident on his face, as she stalks off to find Ginny.

 _“Is it obvious?”_ Blip mocks with a snicker into his drink.


	61. Chapter 61

Mike stares up at the ceiling, counting down the hours until he had to head to spring training…with _her._ The guilt that had been eating at him for months ruminating in his mind, twisting all the scenarios he could conjure up, all of which ended with a scowling Ginny. Her face would flitter with disappointment, perhaps disdain, the cowardice presence of her once idol, ending with her back turned to him, and a door slammed into his face, indicating a season’s worth of resentment.

He breaths a heavy sigh of frustration, running his hands over his face before ambling out of the bed, the cold sheets in the space next to him mocking his choices, echoing in the bare room, rattling into his chest with a sharp stab.

His knees crack as he moves to stand, before pulling on a hoodie, and some pants, and making his way out of the house, his phone illuminating the emptiness he felt, his fingers hovering over her number, his heavy thumb weighing the options before abandoning the thought, tossing the phone into the vacant seat of his car.

He drives aimlessly, as if moving through a fog, the destination unconsciously unknown, but when he finds himself nearing the lights of the Omni, his feet move without thought. Every ding of the elevator arriving at a new floor, elevating the nerves fluttering through his stomach, constricting his breathing, until the pounding of his heart could be felt in heated ears.

His knuckles rap against her door with hesitation, trepidation ringing out through her room, and he’s met with silence. He lowers his sweaty hand, wiping it on his jeans, before hanging his head, listening for movement. When he hears nothing, he moves to try knocking again, the desperation reeking out of his pores.

The flicker in his peripheral has him glancing in the hall, his actions no doubt attracting the attention of other guests witness to his sad display. 

But then there she is.

She appears as if out of a dream, her curls swept to the side in the casual way only she can achieve, her legs wrapped in lycra, and a navy blue hoodie snuggled around her. She’s carrying her weight in takeout, chewing a fry she couldn’t wait to get back to eat. She freezes upon seeing him, her mouth hanging open in surprise for half a second, before steeling her emotions, and moving past him like he’s not even there, pushing him out of the way with her hip to unlock the door.

“What are you doing here?” She asks, trying to juggle her bag and use the keycard.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the raspy quality of her voice is still playing over and over in his head, the first words she’s spoken to him in forever, and he stores them away for later if this turns south, and and judging by the furrow in her brow, that’s exactly where this night is headed.

She’s leaning against the door, her hand poised to slam it in his face, the scenarios flashing in his mind, every possible outcome that he’s had months to play like a horror movie over and over again. But seeing her, here, in the flesh, he has a hard time even committing to words.

“Okay then,” she says, and goes to close the door, but he slaps his hand out, stopping the sweeping motion, and catching her off guard, her eyes growing wide.

“Gin–,” he tries.

“Don’t,” she stops him.

“I’m sor–”

“I don’t want to hear it. You left…no, you were never there,” her eyes grow darker, her tone tinged with hurt.

“I didn’t–”

She holds her hand up to stop him this time, taking a step forward into his space, and his heart beats so fast, he swears she can hear it between them.

“I needed my _Captain_ ,” she says venom dripping from her words. “I needed my friend,” and she glances down at her arm, and he follows her gaze. And then she’s looking at him. Eyes glistening, the brown orbs swimming in a sea of tears that he caused. “I needed _you_ ,” she whispers, and there’s no mistaking the implication.

Her bottom lip is close to quivering, but her teeth jut out to stop the movement, worrying their way into his nerves, into his heart.

He moves his hand to reach out for her, fully expecting her to pull away, slap the offending gesture, shaking him off. But she stands still, as his hand comes to rest on her cheek, his thumb tracing over the curvature of her cheekbone, a stray tear escaping, soaking into his palm.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and she closes her eyes, her eyelashes trapping the wetness.

“You’re an asshole,” she says, and he can’t help the bark of laughter that comes from him, because it’s true, he is. He has been, to her of all people. 

“I am,” he admits to her. “I’m a fucking disaster.”

She’s nodding in his hand, before he removes it and brings it to the back of his neck, rubbing the stress out.

“I’m gonna do better by you. I promise,” He softly mutters. “Please…” he begs.

She peeks underneath his lowered head, catching his attention, causing him to rise to full height.

“Just…” she starts, a small smile coming to her lips. “Tell me you will be there tomorrow.”

He chokes back another laugh.

“I’ll be there,” he promises, a tinge of forever present that washes over her into a slight blush.

“Yeah, probably annoying the shit out of me on the plane,” she teases, trying to lighten to the mood.

“So your arm…it’s good?” He hesitantly asks.

“Yeah,” she assures him. “Looks like you’re stuck with me…”

“Lucky me,” he says like a joke with way too much sincerity behind it.

“Well, I’m gonna go…finish my meal,” she points inside to where she’d dropped her bag.

He nods to her. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll uhh…see ya tomorrow.”

He walks away with a grin on his face, a chance to rebuild, to try again with her, and an unspoken promise to himself that he was never going to leave her again.


	62. Chapter 62

The sweat having just cooled from their skin as she had snuggled into him, his limbs draped around her, drifting slowly to sleep, only to be awoken by the chirps and flash of a fire alarm of her hotel room. Shuffling to throw on clothes, they’d followed the other guests outside into an uncharacteristically cool winter night.

The blaring of the fire alarms echoed behind them, the giant trucks of red and their flashing lights illuminating the displaced occupants of the hotel gathered out on the street.

She bounces from foot to foot, covering her chest with crossed arms, her curls bouncing with the movement. He pulls her close against his chest, and she buries her head in his neck, shielding herself from the cold and the prying eyes sure to see them. His hand comes to quickly move over her back in an attempt to warm her up, her toes coming to rest on top of his, keeping them from the concrete icing them below.

“How long do you think it’ll be?” She asks against him, having already spent a good twenty minutes huddled out here, her nose burrowing into him, her hoarse voice rattling against him.

“I told you we should’ve stayed at my place,” his teasing words flutter across her forehead.

“As I recall,” she says, picking her head up to peer up at him, her hands buried between them. “You were all about just finding a room, any room.”

The image of her from the party, sparkled dress clinging to every curve causing a groan to escape him, and he pulls her closer, placing a kiss to her temple.

“What did you think was going to happen when you slipped your panties in my pocket, hmm?” He says with a sly smile, and an arch of his eyebrow.

“For a fire to start, obviously,” she says with an eye roll.

“Dirty,” he mouths at her, earning a smack to the chest from her hand.

The dinging of a phone sounds around them, and she feels its vibration against her leg, as she looks down to find it coming from Mike’s pants.

“You brought your phone?” She asks.

“Must have still been in the pocket when I took…or rather you flung them off,” he says with a smug grin, as he moves to see who’s texting him.

 _“MICHAEL LAWSON YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO,”_ screams at him in all caps from one Evelyn Sanders, as he scrolls down to find a picture attached of the two of them in the exact position they are now, a short blurb of an article outing them to the world.

He visibly cringes, thankful that Ginny had left her phone upstairs. 

“What?” She asks, his reaction to the text causing of myriad of emotions to flitter across his face, most of all concern.

“Good news travels fast,” he concedes, handing over the phone. She grabs it with two hands, her mouth hanging agape.

“Fuck,” she whispers, her hand coming to worry a few stray curls, pulling lightly on them in a nervous habit he’d seen her do more than a few times.

“You okay?” He asks, moving to tilt her chin up to him, focusing her eyes on him.

“I want to know who the fuck took these photos?” She says, glancing around them, his hand continuing to cradle her head.

“Gin,” he says, calling her back to him.

She leans her head back, a deep sigh let out into the night.

“It was gonna happen eventually,” she reasons, trying to calm her breathing. “I just wish it hadn’t been when I was wearing your boxers,” she huffs, her carefully concealed hurt, filed away for later.

He nods, a silent acceptance.

“Not my best move,” she reasons.

“I don’t know, I think you look pretty cute in them,” he says with a tweak of her nose, and she scrunches her face at him. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, and she knows the guilt is already wrapping its noose around him.

“Don’t be,” she says with a light tug of his beard. “This is good,” she reasons. “No more secrets. They know we’re together.”

“Together,” he repeats, linking their hands, waiting for the alarms to stop their warning, ready to face the aftermath together.


	63. Chapter 63

She stumbles out of the elevator of the hotel, her heels swaying in her hand with the lilt, her other hand coming to balance herself against the wall. Her horsey giggles can be heard echoing through the empty hallway, her eyes squinting tightly shut, as her shoes are dropped with a thud.

Mike’s hands come out to catch her, as she bends down with very little grace trying to gather up the death traps she’d peeled off quickly. His fingers dig into her hips with the weight of holding her up, and she swears she can feel her heartbeat in the fingertips that grip her, a transference of sorts.

“Shh, Rookie, you’re gonna wake everyone up,” he says with a bemused expression.

At his suggestion, she shrugs out of his grasp, and turns around, laying flat against the carpet, her short dress riding high as she lifts her arms, her long legs on full display to him, and she can hear him choke back a groan.

“Okay, up,” he says, as if talking to a small child, putting a strain on his back, as he folds her up into a standing position, like a marionette, a shoe in each of her hands. He moves her along, as she claps the toes together.

 _She’s so fucking drunk,_ she thinks to herself, as he ushers her inside her room, having the good sense to have gotten her key before they entered the building.

She twirls around, her dress flying out like a scene from a movie. And that’s when the humming starts. It’s bad, so bad. Mangled to the point of unrecognizable…to anyone else, but she knows he recognizes a very off-key rendition of the last song that played on the radio when he drove her here.

“Dance…with…me,” she slurs, and makes a grab for him, but does nothing more than lean against him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, as he wraps her up in his arms. Her humming stops and they’re just standing there, in the middle of the hotel room, Mike’s hands securing her in place, as the first calming breath comes to her all night.

“Time for bed,” he suggests, and she nods against him, before turning and flopping onto the bed, fully clothed. “You don’t want to change?” He asks, the heavy sigh met with an audible groan is heard from the sheets.

She manages to get herself standing and is guided into the bathroom with a change of clothes she’d had lying on a chair.

“You need any help?” 

The question has her raising her eyebrow at him, and he holds up his hands, claiming his innocence. His concern palpable.

“’M good,” she mumbles. She only manages to get her shirt on, opting to forgo the sweatpants, as her balance is not nearly steady enough to finagle that mess.

Walking out, her shirt barely covers her ass, but she quickly climbs under the sheets, as Mike sits at the foot of the bed.

“Mike–”

“Ginny–” they say at the same time, and he ducks his hand at her laugh, finding everything so funny.

“I should go, Gin,” he says, standing up, and patting her leg through the sheet. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No,” she all but yells, having him freezing in place. “Stay,” she says in a whisper.

She knows this is a bad idea, but she’s too drunk to care.

“Just to sleep, I promise,” offering up her pinky, like he’s gonna grab it from her and seal the promise like a twelve year old.

“You want me to spit in my hand and shake on it, too?” He teases, and she scrunches up her nose.

“It would probably get stuck in your beard if you tried,” she says with an infectious laugh.

“Fine,” he acquiesces, undressing quickly, and climbing into bed, her eyes roaming over him through the process, bringing a slight blush to her cheeks when he catches her.

They lay in silence, his gruff breath the only thing she can hear clearly over the rapid beating of her heart of having him that close to her.

She rolls over to face him, causing her head to swim, her finger finding its way to his arm, tracing the veins with more concentration than she’d had the whole night.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she rasps out against him.

“Hmm,” he hums, his eyes closed.

“And umm…thanks…thanks for staying,” she mumbles, her finger stopping its trail, and wrapping her hand around his forearm.

He peeks one eye open, as if sensing her words carry more meaning than just him resting in her bed right now.

Mike turns over, until their noses are a breath away from each other.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ginny,” he mutters into the dark room.

She moves to bury her face in the pillow, but the muffled words, “You almost did,” can be heard.

His hand moves her curls away from her face, bringing it to face him once again.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ginny,” he repeats, and she nods, a slow smile coming to rest upon her face. “Now go to sleep, you’re going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow,” he says with a tweak of her nose.

“I better not find you hogging all the sheets,” she threatens.

“Only if you don’t use me as a pillow like on the bus,” he flings back, and there’s those giggles again.

The next morning they find themselves in that exact position, Ginny snuggled into his side, her head resting against him, and the sheets cocooning them into one side of the bed.


	64. Chapter 64

"GINNY, WHO DID THIS TO YOU?" Mike asks as he opened the door to his house.

“What?” She asks, genuinely confused, as she wobbles to a standing position, having been planted outside the house for the past hour like some sort of lost puppy.

He sets the food he was carrying down in the entryway and turns towards her, gently reaching out to touch her face, concern etched into his forehead, as his fingers ghost across her chin. She freezes, waiting for his next move. The pad of his thumb traces a crack in her lip, the scarlet mark stings even upon his soft pressure, and she finds herself hissing, yanking her head out of his grasp.

Her tongue comes out to inspect the damage, before her hand finds itself making the same trail as his just moments before.

“Oh, umm,” she fumbles for words, ducking her head. Mike steps forward, approaching her like she’ll flee any second, like she hadn’t been waiting for him when he arrived. “It’s nothing,” she shakes her head. “I just…nervous habit,” she waves her hand.

He raises an eyebrow at her, questioning the validity of her statement. But like her claim, she finds herself pulling the swollen lip into her mouth, before realizing her mistake and grimacing.

Accepting her explanation, he moves into the glass house, gathering the food, Ginny following closely behind, bypassing him, her sling rubbing against his arm as she goes, right over to the counter where she grabs the fluffy ball attached to her keys with her good arm.

“Ahhh!” She holds them up in victory.

“You know the point of that obnoxious thing is so you don’t lose your keys,” he says as sets down his bag on the counter and goes to the fridge for a drink.

“Yeah, and what’s the excuse you use for that obnoxious thing?” She teases with a grin, before sauntering up to him and lightly pulling on his beard.

“So you don’t lose me,” he says without pause.

She snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, well, I could’ve used you both about an hour ago.”

“I thought you were going out with Evelyn?” He asks with a pull of his drink, before offering her the bottle.

“She had some last minute restaurant thing,” she admits with a shrug. “So it looks like I’m all yours this evening.”

“Lucky me,” he says openly staring at her, the heat collecting in her ears under his gaze.

“Yeah…” she mumbles, “So I…I hope you got enough food for both of us.”

“What kind of guy to do you take me for?” He asks, removing the boxes from the bag, enough food to feed the entire team spread out before her. 

She traces the black marker in bold lettering across one of the boxes. 

_NO CILANTRO_

He finger making the curve of the last O as she looks up at him with a soft smile. 

“You know the last guy I went out with,” not wanting to mention the name of the man she’d used to try to forget Mike. “He tricked me into eating cilantro ranch,” she says with a grimace, the soapy, pugnant taste springing into her mouth upon recognition.

“Amateur,” he teases, bumping her with his hip, sending a raspy laugh through her.

“Thanks, Mike,” she says, a watery smile making its way across her face, her dimples like bursts of sunshine through the rain. “I know…you didn’t have to do…this,” she admits, looking around at the house, her stuff slowly but surely integrating with his own.

“You’re my rookie,” he says with a shrug, like it’s not a big deal, taking the modest route for once.

“Is that the only reason?” She nervously asks, her head remaining tucked down, staring at the box.

He turns towards her, and she can feel his eyes raking over her, searching for a clue as to how to respond. Reaching out, he pulls her lip from her teeth, the deep crack having not stopped her from masochistically worrying it further.

“It’s not the only reason, Ginny.”

Her mouth twitches up, a knowing flicker passing over her, before nodding.


	65. Chapter 65

"Help me," Ginny says.

“What was that?” Mike leans closer, cupping his ear with his hand. “I didn’t quite hear you,” he teases with a smug grin on his face.

She huffs out a breath, narrowing her eyes, before slapping her good hand down onto her thigh in frustration. “I said, ’Help me.’ Or are you hard of hearing, old man?”

“That’s what I thought,” he says taking the jar from in front of her, making a show of struggling to get to get it open, only to easily pop the top with a satisfied grin. He jokingly flexes his arm, and she finds herself rolling her eyes with good humor. 

“You are so ridiculous,” she says, before moving to the cabinet, her bare toes coming to balance her as she reaches for a bowl. A sliver of her stomach is exposed as the grey hoodie she’s wearing slides up on her left side, her sling exaggerating the lean in reaching for the dish. She can feel his gaze sliding over her, burying itself in the pit of her stomach, before his hand comes to rest on the small of her back, steadying her as he reaches up and takes the bowl down easily. 

She can feel his warmth hovering above her, the gentle pressure of his hand not leaving her, instead guiding her back over to the island, as he closes the cabinet.

And then as if realizing his mistake, quickly removes his hand.

“So uhh,” he says rubbing the back of his neck, and she can’t help the smirk that comes to her lips, watching him nervously navigate their new living situation. “What are you doing today?”

“Oh, you know,” she says while pouring the salsa into the bowl. “I thought I’d do some heavy lifting, maybe throw a few before doing laps in the pool.” She throws a grin at him, and he shakes his head.

“Cute,” he quips back.

“I don’t know,” she says, grabbing the bowl and motioning for him to get the chips. “I’m not used to having this much free time,” she says as she settles onto the couch, pushing herself all the way back, crossing her legs like a kid, and settling the bowl in between her legs.

He flops down next to her, opening the bag for her, not wanting to see the struggle again, before setting it between them. She’s digging in before he can respond.

“Well, what did you do as a teenager?”

“Baseball,” she responds with a full mouth. 

“Yeah, but what else?” He pries.

“That’s it,” she says with a one armed shrug.

“That can’t be it,” he says, taking a chip for himself, reaching over to dip it in the salsa resting precariously up against her crotch. He swallows a lump, and she fights back a grin. “You just finished practice, you’re sitting in your room, and you’re doing…” he goads.

“Staring up at your poster,” she says with a wink.

He nearly chokes on his chip, her good hand coming out to pat his back.

“Shit, I didn’t meant to kill ya, old man.”

“Warn a guy, Baker,” he says with watery eyes, the coughing causing him to tear up a bit.

“Sorry,” she laughs out. “Well, what did you do for fun?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he teases back with a wink of his own.

She scrunches up her face in disgust. 

“No, I would not,” she affirms, shoving another chip in her mouth, this time losing part of the salsa, flopping onto her chin.

He reaches out, the pad of his thumb smudging over the drip, a tingling traveling across her jaw, before he takes his thumb, putting it in his mouth, sucking away the spill.

She openly stares at the gesture, her tongue jutting out to taste her own lips, the salt of the chips lingering.

“Well…” she starts. “Your teenage life was clearly lacking without a Ginny poster to keep you company,” she recovers.

He raises his eyebrows at her statement, and realization seems to dawn on her.

“Eww, no. Not like that,” she reaches out slapping his arm. “Don’t be gross.”

“You said it, not me,” he feigns innocence.

“Just…” she almost stutters, her cheeks heating up with embarrassment. “Turn on the TV or something.”

“You know I can get you that same poster for your room here, make it feel more like home,” he jokes, elbowing her arm.

“Nah, I’ve since met him, not that great.”

“I hear he’s great,” he retorts.

“The offer goes both ways though, I can get you that Ginny poster that was missing from your life all those years ago,” that dimpled smirk appearing again.

“Nah, I’ve got the real thing, I don’t need a poster,” he says, turning the TV on.

“Yeah,” she whispers out, focusing her eyes on the illuminated screen before them.

_This new living arrangement might not be so bad._


	66. Chapter 66

Mike drives to the hospital in a haze, white-knuckling the wheel as he flies down the highway. The worried voice of Blip on the phone ringing in his ears like an alarm, refusing to go off until he saw her.

It’s not until he’s yelling at the nurse at the desk that he realizes he’s caused a scene, demanding to see a woman he has no familial relation to, his heart seized in a vice grip. His fist coming down to hit the counter, the rantings of a man consumed in fear, that Blip finally comes out and sees his stricken face.

“She’s fine, man. Relax,” he tries to comfort Mike.

“How are the twins?” He asks, his eyes roaming the hallway for which room Ginny is in, his concern no less for the safety of Blip’s kids, but distracted by the need to make sure with his own eyes that Ginny was in fact _fine_.

An assurance that a few bruises were the only injury sustained on the kids’ frames, he’s led to a room with a pat on the back, as a shaky hand opening the door to her room.

She’s sitting on the bed, her head in her hands, her eyes closed tightly, as if willing away the day.

“Gin,” he approaches her, not wanting to spook her.

She peers up at him, a slight gash on her forehead, held together by a few stitches, her eyes filled with regretful tears, and she’s up off the bed in seconds, wrapping her arms around Mike, burying her head in his shoulder, and releasing the trauma of the day into him, soaking through.

His hand comes to rest on the back of her head, softly stroking over her curls. 

“It’s okay, everyone’s okay,” is repeated like a litany into her ear, until she finally pulls back, the horror of the day, and the ghosts of the past haunt her eyes, and she stares at him like he’s her only lifeline.

“What happened?” He asks, not wanting to push her.

“I don’t know,” she whimpers, her hands flying up. “The truck was coming into our lane, and I had nowhere to go, and I just…crashed,” she explains in a flurry of words and gestures, the stress leaking from her. “And the boys, god, the boys…”

He grabs her hands, securing them by her side.

“It’s okay. The boys are okay,” he assures her, and she slowly nods, as if acknowledging for the first time that nothing more serious had occurred.

He runs his hand over the gash, and she briefly winces, and his thumb travels over the stitches. Concern etched all over him, his eyes squinting to scan the rest of her to make sure she hadn’t hurt anything else.

“I scared the shit out of you, didn’t I?” Her eyes downcast.

“Maybe we should think about you giving that license back,” he replies, and her eyes grow wide, before nodding to that too. “Gin, I’m kidding. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I just..I don’t have a good track record with cars,” she mumbles into herself.

And he instantly feels like an ass for teasing her, the memory of her dad ghosting itself in that moment.

“Everyone’s–”

“’Okay,’ I know,” she says with a soft smile.

“Right,” he awkwardly agrees, letting the silence envelop them.

“Can I go see the boys?” She asks with hopeful eyes, tinged with remorse.

“Yeah,” he says, guiding her to the hallway with his hand resting on the small of her back.

His eyes never leave her, needing the assurance that she’s here with him, healing and breathing.

She glances at him, roaming over his expression of concern. Sensing her question, he pulls her closer, a kiss placed on the crown of her head.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Gin.”


	67. Chapter 67

_"Can you pick up the kids from school today?"_

Mike pulls the phone back, checking to see if it was in fact who the phone claimed it to be.

Ginny eyeing him curiously in the passenger seat.

“Me?” He asks, confused at the request.

“Yeah, you. Look, I just have a ton of things to do, and I know that you’re already out playing chauffeur to Ginny, I just thought, maybe, you’d like to pay me back for keeping my mouth shut,” she taunts, as if privy to a secret even he’s unaware of.

“Keeping your mouth shut about what?” And the moment he asks, he knows it’s a mistake, because Evelyn’s voice carries, and the next words out of her mouth are likely to reach the curious ears of the passenger beside him.

“You know what I’m talking about, Michael,” she warns in her serious voice, the one usually reserved for the twins and her husband, an apparently now him when it comes to Evelyn’s best friend.

He glances over at Ginny, who’s looking at the window with a soft grin. The details of this _thing_ Evelyn claims to know but won’t tell written all over her face, but admitting that, right here, right now not sounding like the most appealing option.

“Yeah, yeah, we can pick them up,” he couples them together, convincing himself it was more out of convenience than reading into the fact that they’d become a _‘we’_ more and more these days.

“Change of plans?” She asks with a shake of her head, her curls blowing in her face at the wind as she looks at him, framing her in sunshine.

“Uhh, yeah, I took a part-time job as an uber driver,” he claims, but the smirk on his face gives way to the annoyance being nothing more than an act.

“Ooo-ber,” she mocks him, and its his turn to shake his head.

“I believe they threw things at him when that was done,” he reminds her, and she laughs.

“I knew you were watching without me!” She declares, her recent injury and the off season leading their boredom to stray onto a dark path of binge watching.

He pinks in embarrassment, until realization dawns on him with a raise of her brow. “You would have to have been watching without me to know that…”

“I can’t help it if you fall asleep in the middle of an episode, old man,” she defends herself.

“Sure, Ginny,” he says, and he doesn’t miss the flicker of a flash in her eyes every single time he uses her first name. Even now, living together as roommates, spending most, if not all of their time together, the frequency with which he finds himself using her given name, the feeling, the longing, the want from that night never leaves them.

As the boys pile in, their backpacks thrown against the back of his seat, fist bumping Aunt Ginny with her good hand as they lean over, he blanks on what he’s supposed to do now.

He looks at Ginny, always at ease with them.

“So, uhh, boys…what do you want to do?” He broaches, and he feels his ears getting warmer under the stare of Ginny.

The three of them make quick eye contact, the gleam of excitement present in all of them, as they simultaneously shout, “ICE CREAM!”

Ginny gives a punch in the air in victory, the boys energy matched with her own, before she twists back around to him.

“I didn’t realize I was picking up _three_ children,” he teases.

And he can hear the laughter from the back as she sticks her tongue out at him with a wink.

“Just drive, Ooo-ber,” she teases.

“Just for that, tonight’s pick is mine,” he winks back.

She scrunches up her face in a slight pout, before conceding.

“Fine, but you’re getting sprinkles on your ice cream.”

“Why don’t you just kill me now, it’ll be easier than slowly poisoning me with all that sugar.”

She places her hand on his shoulder, and he swears, he can feel the tingle racing down his arm. 

“Now we can’t do that, can we boys? We need our driver,” he hears agreement, and declarations of all kinds of odd combinations of ice cream that they plan to get.

“That’s all I’m good for, huh?”

She looks at him, tilting her head with a knowing grin, her eyes tracing over him.

“I guess we’ll see.”


	68. Chapter 68

She hadn’t even meant to keep it a secret. When Trevor had insisted that they go get coffee during the off season to talk about things, she’d been persistent in her refusal, not wanting to dredge up old wounds, the scar of their past long since healed over.

So she was surprised with herself when he asked again and she agreed.

The meet up had gone smoothly enough. The butterflies she got when she saw him had long since dissipated, and the bitter taste of bile had stopped fighting its way up her throat. She was happily apathetic towards him these days. Her will to fight better spent on burying the feelings she now carried for another catcher, one with far more facial hair.

The sense of closure when they’d gotten up to leave was present, and a great sigh of relief was felt as she found herself home.

Staring up at the glass house, her reflection mirrored back to her, one of contentment. Walking into the house, she nearly tripped on her running shoes, having carelessly flung them in the entryway last night.

“You know you wouldn’t risk breaking your neck everyday if you just put them away,” he warns, having been witness to her act of lazy clumsiness more often than not.

“Keeps me on my toes,” she says, throwing her shoes further into the house.

He huffs, not in the mood to argue with her that morning.

“So where’d you go?” He asks casually, probably having assumed she went running until the tell of her discarded shoes still laid out like a death trap had given her away.

“Nowhere,” she shrugs, reaching over him to grab a mug from the cabinet, the one cup of coffee with Trevor having not sufficed. “Just got some coffee,” she tries, but he raises his eyebrow at her, knowing full well she doesn’t function that early the morning, let alone venture out before her morning coffee here, at their house.

“Met up with an old friend,” she offers, trying to placate his curiosity.

He reaches over, crossing their arms in a weird game of twister. The smooth underside of his arm sliding against her’s, leaving a trail of goosebumps despite the warm drink resting in her hand.

“Does this friend have a name?” He asks with a laugh.

She brings the coffee up to her lips, wincing as the hot liquid burns a hole in her tongue, making its treacherous trail down her throat, fighting the truth that’s about to slip from her.

“Trevor Davis,” she says into her cup, but she knows he hears her because he freezes mid-pour, and she swears she can feel him bristle with a sort of protective anger.

He looks at her, and she glances anywhere but at him.

“Trevor fucking Davis,” he says with an eery sense of control. “Are you kidding me,” but it’s not a question, so much as a stand of ambivalence, not wanting to blow up on her, but also knowing the story behind this guy.

“It’s not a big deal,” she shrugs off his comment. “We met for coffee, we talked, I left. The end,” she explains, bypassing him to the couch.

Sitting down, she blows on her coffee, not wanting a repeat of scorched earth inside her.

She hears him come up behind her, his heavy breathing giving him away.

“So are you guys…,” and he lets out a sigh, as if the next words are physically hurting him. “Back together?”

Ginny snorts at that, her dimples coming out in amusement.

“No, definitely not,” she says with a shake of her head, and she can see the tension release from his body, as he walks around to join her on the couch.

“Good.”

“Good?” She asks, raising her eyebrow at his response.

He flushes slightly. “Yeah, I mean, he wasn’t good enough for you,” he explains with a wave of his hand, as if offended by the notion that anyone could ever be good enough for her.

“Oh yeah?” She questions with a purse of her lips, fighting back a smile. “And who is?”

He pauses for a long time, as if contemplating his answer.

“I don’t know, Baker. I’m not Match.com.”

She laughs, bringing her mug to her chest as to not spill.

“I just think…you know, you deserve someone who appreciates you, who gets you,” he says with a sip of his drink.

She tilts her head at him, fighting back the smile threatening to give everything away.

“I agree,” she says, and she can’t hold in the soft smile that appears on her face mirroring the embarrassed one appearing through the roughage of his beard.


	69. Chapter 69

"'It's an interview and a photo shoot so try to behave like mature adults and not like children, okay?" Ginny barely acknowledged Oscar and was too busy openly ignoring Mike as he tapped her foot with his own, repeatedly.

Oscar walks away like a frustrated babysitter, right as Ginny turns to Mike.

“Stop it!” She seethes.

“What?” He asks, knowing full well that he’s annoying her.

“You promised,” she harshly whispers at him, not wanting to attract the attention of the full crew around them.

“I promised I would be nice,” he says with a forced smirk.

“And this is nice?” She exasperatedly asks, throwing her hands up.

“We could always go for the alternative,” he baits, not really wanting to piss her off further. He’d done a good job of that already earlier this week.

What had started as an argument about her tendency to leave her wet towels on the floor had quickly escalated to him not wanting her there any longer, which ultimately led to her slamming the door and making her way to Evelyn’s for the next two nights.

They’d agreed upon a peace treaty during today’s events, but the agreement was quickly crumbling as he sat this close to her.

“Oh yeah, what would be the alternative? You telling everyone that we’re living together?”

“Well, we aren’t really living together right now, are we?” He mutters under his breath, but he knows she hears him, as her eyes narrow and her foot comes out to hit him in the shin. Hard.

“Fuck,” he curses, bending to rub his sore leg.

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that not nice?” Her sarcasm felt by all in the room.

“You’re acting like a child, Rookie.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re treated like one by your–” but she’s cut off by his hand gripping her arm, a warning in his eyes.

“Captain,” she nervously finishes, glancing around the room, before assuring hersself that half the people in there are more convinced they hate each other, than in a lovers’ quarrel.

He brings himself closer to her, not enough to warrant suspicion, but close enough that only she can hear what he says next.

“Look, Gin, I’m sorry,” he pleads, quickly melting under her big brown eyes. “I was frustrated, I took it out on you. I didn’t mean it.”

She runs her fingers over her lips in a nervous habit.

“If you don’t want me living there…”

“I do. God, I do,” he quickly amends. She’d started living there as a patient, quickly morphing into a permanent roommate, and eventually someone he ended up sharing his bed with, as well as his life.

“What if I never learn to pick up my towels?” She asks with a raise of her eyebrows, but not missing the flicker of fear in her irises.

“Then we’ll step on wet towels for the rest of our lives.”

At that he gets the dimpled smile, the one bookened by dots of sunshine.

“The rest of our lives, huh?”

“Well, who else is gonna put up with all your bad habits?”

“I’m sure there is someone out there,” she says with a wink.

“Probably doesn’t have a beard,” he says, running his fingers over his pride and joy.

“This mystery guy is sounding better and better.”

He almost looks offended, until she wraps her arms around his neck, locking him in with her gaze.

“But I kinda like what I have.”

“Is that so?”

“Hmm,” she hums.

“You guys ready to get started?” They’re asked, and she quickly drops her hands from him, giving him a light punch to the arm.

They nod.

Ready to start the next phase.


	70. Chapter 70

"You spent how much?"

Evelyn waves her hand like the amount she just said was nothing short of pocket change, as she winds around the kitchen like it were her own.

Ginny shakes her head at her friend, glancing at Mike to see if he’d heard, but he’s completely engrossed with the baby he has bouncing on his knee. Her chubby hands reach out to grab his beard, triumphant squeals of glee echoing throughout the house.

A soft smile comes to Ginny’s lips as she takes in the scene.

“Is Kaia flying?” He asks, and she gives a loud squawk in response, her limbs flailing about. Her daughter’s eyes alight with excitement and complete adoration for the man in front of her.

Evelyn startles her from behind, coming to lean her head on Ginny’s shoulder, staring at the sight she can’t help but tear herself away from.

“I don’t know how you get anything done around here,” she teases, but as Mike lifts the baby girl over him, the complete trust she has that he won’t drop her, Ginny’s not really sure how she manages to function anymore either.

At her lack of response, Evelyn laughs.

“Well, at least I know how he managed to worm his way into your pants,” and Ginny turns to look at her aghast, with a swat of her hand.

“Ev!”

“You didn’t let me finish, I was going to say, ‘and your heart.’”

“You’re awful, you know that, right?” She says with a slight heat traveling up her neck, as she glances down to mess with the string of her hoodie. The flush of knowing full well that it was indeed the same man, with his endless encouragement, admiration, and trust in her, along with some liquid courage that had resulted in him not only landing her in bed, but a permanent member of the family, plus one.

“Mmhmm,” Evelyn sarcastically hums to herself. “I’m not the one living in sin,” she says with a wink.

Ginny narrows her eyes at Evelyn, the subject of making things official having come up once with Mike when she first got pregnant, and never again upon her insistence. And now, it seemed she had scared him off for good, almost a year having passed since Kaia was born, and Ginny’s having successfully transitioned back into the game.

Things were good. Perfect even. She didn’t necessarily need a ring, a document to prove anything to her. But she couldn’t help the prickle of doubt whenever someone would bring up the subject.

Plopping onto the stool at the counter, she rests her elbows on the cool surface, her face supported by her naked fingers, a fact no one would allow her to forget.

“Gin, look, I know you don’t _need_ to get married. I only bring it up because you two are so sickeningly cute together with your little family that I just want you to have everything…big expensive diamond and everything.”

Ginny rolls her eyes at the mention of a big expensive ring, but the idea of a marriage, though tainted by the example she had been presented with as a child, slowly sounding more and more appealing as she realizes what that would actually mean, a life spent with Mike.

“I guess it wouldn’t be _sooo_ terrible to be married to Mike,” she admits to Evelyn, and the squeal she lets out is one akin to her baby.

“That’s all I’m saying,” she gets out after taking a breath. A knowing, bright smile taking over her face, as she motions with her chin to look behind her.

Two matching smiles meet her’s one hindered by a beard, the other one almost identical to her own, shared dimples on full display.

“There’s my baby girl,” she coos at Kaia, and she makes for grabby hands towards her, as she lunges into her arms, quickly snuggling into her chest.

Mike places a quick kiss on Ginny’s forehead before heading around towards Evelyn, grabbing a water.

“So what have you girls been talking about in here?” He asks, guzzling from the bottle.

Ginny runs a hand over Kaia’s little curls, lightly rocking her.

“How much Evelyn spent on a pair of shoes,” she offers. “Your Aunt Evy, looooves shoes,” she says in a raspy voice that has the baby smiling.

Lowering the water bottle, Mike smiles at the two of them, snuggled in the hoodie, the same look of contentment and wonder Evelyn had witnessed on Ginny’s face just minutes before.

“You both are idiots,” she says with an exasperated gesture.


	71. Chapter 71

"I just think it's funny how...

you drag me to the movies, and then fall asleep ten minutes into it,” he jokes, as they continue to sit in the theatre seats. Ginny had woken to the sound of clambering feet shuffling to the exit, while Mike stared at her with an amused grin, putting a piece of popcorn in his mouth like he’d spent the last two hours watching her rather than the movie.

“I caught the beginning,” she says with a shrug.

“Barely,” he argues, as she makes a grab for the popcorn, but he quickly pulls it away. Her narrowed eyes have him rethinking the move, and slowly moving it back within her reach.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says with a mouthful of popcorn that she’d loaded up with butter prior to saddling him with the entire thing until now. “Are you the one with the baby inside you that decides to conduct a one person soccer game with your insides when you lay down to sleep every night?”

He tries to fight the smile threatening to get him into trouble, spoiling the rest of their day, but he can’t help it when it comes to the mention of the baby.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned, the girl has impeccable timing,” he says with a wink, the reference to her surprise existence not lost on her.

“We’ll see how amusing you find it when it’s your ass up with her in the middle of the night,” she warns, tossing him the popcorn bag, and moving to push herself out of the seat, and finding the task more difficult than expected.

“I got you,” he assures her, gently grasping her arms and practically hauling her out of the seat. She grabs his hand, her long finger tangling with his own, as they tackle the stairs.

“So what was the movie about anyway?” 

“Oh you know, girl needs a date to a wedding, and then shows up to find her ex there, love triangle ensues, the usual,” he explains.

“The usual? You watch a lot of romantic comedies in your free time that I don’t know about?” She teases, tugging on his beard.

“Just the ones you insist upon and then fall asleep on the couch to,” he says, lightly bumping her hip, his steady hand still on her so she won’t actually trip.

“That’s happened maybe…” she starts, trying to count.

“At least fifteen times,” he says before she can continue.

She balks at him, her eyes wide.

“No, it’s been maybe five,” she says holding out her hand.

“It’s been more like twenty, but sure, we’ll go with five,” assuring the accuracy with a squeeze of his hand.

“Well there’s a remote, you could’ve turned them, you know,” she tries to justify her actions.

He shrugs.

She stops them, and he looks at her, smug grin on her face.

“Oh my God, you like them, don’t you?”

“No, Ginny, I don’t like them” he says, but while his words says one thing, his voice hints at another.

“Wow, you totally like chick flicks,” she says with a raspy laugh.

“I think that lack of sleep is finally getting to you, making you all crazy,” he tries to distract, tapping her head.

“What was the name of the character in the movie we just saw?”

“You mean the movie _I_ just saw,” he corrects.

She tilts her head with a smile, waiting for his answer.

“Clara,” he says with a sigh. “What does that prove?”

“And did she end up with who you wanted her to?”

“Ginny,” he grits out. But she’s completely wrapped around his arm at this point, her stomach pushing into his side, her big brown eyes gazing at him with eager anticipation, and he knows the next words out of his mouth, she will never let him live down.

“Yes,” he almost whispers.

“Oh my God,” she laughs, bending over as much as she can, but still gripping his hand.

“Are you happy now?” He asks, and while his ears are red, the heat of the moment settling on his face.

“Very,” she says. “You’re gonna be such a hit with our daughter, you big softy” she teases, her laughter continuing down the theatre hall, as they make their way out to the car.

The warmth of her hand settles in his own, the radiant smile on her face, highlighted with a pair of dimples, the only assurance he needs that he’d admit to just about anything if it made her smile like _that_.


	72. Chapter 72

"Lawson, come get your kid!"

Mike pauses halfway through pulling his shirt on, a confused look puzzling his face, as he finishes dressing, making his way down the stairs.

“Why is she always just _my_ kid when she does something bad?” He asks with a grin, wondering what exactly he was about to walk in on.

He stops dead in his tracks when he comes upon them.

Ginny’s hand is covering her mouth, her laughter being held back by her palm, her eyes alight with amusement.

Kaia sits in her high chair, spaghetti sauce smeared all over her face, strands of pasta dangling from the tray, a sticky mess lingering on the floor below her.

Mike lets out a howl of laughter, and Kaia throws her hands up into her hair, her squealing giggles joining his.

Ginny loses it along with him, her hand coming to grip her side, tears gathering in her eyes as the laughter refuses to let up.

“What did you do, baby girl?” He asks, and she throws her head back in exasperation, kicking her legs out.

“Eat!” She yells with an adorable dimpled smile.

“You sure? I don’t think any of it actually went in your mouth,” he says, his finger coming to her saucy cheek.

He looks back at Ginny, still laughing in the corner.

“Don’t look at me, that was all her,” she points at the baby.

“Blaming the baby, Gin? That’s low,” he teases, right as Kaia begins banging her sticky hands on the tray, smearing the remaining dinner around into further chaos, and then promptly shoving all four fingers in her mouth. Quiet approval of her dinner evident on her chubby cheeks.

“I might have encouraged the behavior,” she says with a scrunch of her nose. “Just a little,” she holds up her fingers, barely an inch between them.

“I’m not sure who’s the child in this situation,” he says with a shake of his head.

“I can tell you who’s the old man,” she says with a bite.

“Hey, I’m fun,” he says, mock hurt coloring him. “I’m fun, right?” He turns to ask Kaia.

“Dada,” she says pointing at him.

Ginny walks closer to them.

“Who’s the fun one, Kaia bean?”

“Mama!” She squeals, reaching out for her.

“See,” she says with a satisfied grin, removing the small girl from her chair, transferring more than a little sauce onto her own workout gear.

Mike throws her a look, before looking down, his hands dancing along the vacated tray.

Ginny mumbles into the baby, making them both smile.

“Hey Gin,” he calls her to attention, and smears sauce on her face.

Stunned silence rings out, her mouth coming into an O shape, shock written all over her. Kaia looks around, confused.

“Now you guys really are twins,” he taunts.

“Oh, you are dead, Lawson,” she jokes.

Holding out the baby at him.

“Get him, Kaia!”

The girl reaching out for him, smearing his new white shirt with red, turning the family resemblance into that of a massacre, the three of them covered in a sauce.

“Ugh, gross,” he says in an octave he reserves just for his daughter.

“As a Baker-Lawson, it’s only fair she share her dinner with both Baker and Lawson,” Ginny teases, her eyelashes leaving a trail of red with every blink.

“Mama thinks she’s so clever, doesn’t she?” He asks Kaia, as he settles her into his arms.

“Mama,” she quietly agrees, just loving the sound of the word in her mouth.

“Yeah, Mama,” he says with such affection, bringing her dirty head to settle on his shoulder.

“How about a bath, little bean?” Ginny asks, and they trudge up the stairs together, leaving the kitchen mess for afterwards.

“Admit it, I’m fun,” he goads.

She lets out a snort of laughter.

“What?”

“I remember you saying something to that effect the first time we met. That _this_ was going to be fun,” she gestures between the two of them.

“I’d say I’ve delivered,” he punctuates with a wink.

“Had I known what you meant, I wouldn’t have—”

“You wouldn’t have what?” He says with a knowing look.

She looks at their content daughter staring at her from her dad’s arms, a smug grin peeking out from his beard, which she gives a slight tug.

“Changed a thing,” she admits.

“God, you’re such a sap, Gin,” he teases.

She smacks his ass, as she passes him up the stairs, leaving the same shocked, satisfied grin as their first meeting.


	73. Chapter 73

"Lawson, what the hell is that?"

He holds up the offending object, and her face cringes at the thing.

“These, Baker, are my favorite pair of sweatpants,” he says with a pat to the nearly threadbare material.

“I wouldn’t even call those pants, they’re more like tights with how see through they are,” she laughs from bed, her own bare legs crossed, her hair tossed to the side, resting over the ratty t-shirt of his she’d claimed for herself.

“Bite your tongue, Gin, they’ll hear you,” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows, before turning to brush his teeth.

“I get it, I get it. You’re an old man set in his ways,” she teases, and he can hear a groan from the bathroom.

Flopping back onto the pillow, she makes herself comfortable on the side of the bed she’d recently claimed as her own. The relationship new, and while comfortable, they were trudging through the nuances of each other in their home life, like learning that the man before her apparently saved every piece of clothing he ever owned.

She tucks herself in, creating a cocoon, only to have the covers ripped from her as he made a scene getting into bed, the barely there sweatpants coming to rub against her bare legs.

“Eww, get those things away from me,” she says through a raspy giggle.

“Oh come on, they’re not that bad,” he tries to justify, but they were. The blue hue that had once been had faded to an awkward purple, little balls of fuzz permanently clung to them, and they were so old all the insulation that could’ve, at one point, made you warm, had surrendered to its age and given up, providing nothing more than partial coverage.

He wraps his arm around her, his hand coming to rest on the small of her back, scooting her closer, while simultaneously entangling their legs, so she was surrounded by the offensive material, and the scrunch of disgust on her face had him leaning forward, lightly scratching her face with his beard.

Her laughter filling the room, as a muffled “Mike,” makes it’s way out. “I love you, but I will kick you out of this bed,” she warns, and he immediately stills.

His hand grips her side, lifting his head to try to find her eyes, but she’s already realized her mistake, and is worming her way out of reach.

He props himself up on this arm, his eyes glowing with amusement.

“Gin…”

Ginny takes the pillow below her, and slams it over her heated face, as if she could hide from what was coming. Her fingers find purchase in the stark white case, her head shaking back and forth, struggling, but only from herself.

Finally, she wretches the pillow down onto her stomach, her eyes closed tightly.

“So I love you, yeah, whatever. It’s not a big deal,” she tries to say, her bottom lip tucked tightly between her teeth.

“Gin…”

“I mean, it’s not like it’s a secret or anything. Evelyn pointed it out months ago, and yeah, I told her she was wrong, but I knew she was right, I just didn’t mean to say anything like…right this second. It just slipped out…” she continues talking a million miles an hour, the smile on his face growing wider by the second.

“Gin…” he tries again, his hand coming out to stroke her cheek.

“What?” She snaps at him, almost as if forgetting he was even there in her little rant, turning her head to his bemused expression.

“I love you too, you know,” he says with a shrug, like it was a given. The inevitability of it all displayed between the two of them, tucked in bed, arguing over clothes like an old married couple.

“Well…” she starts. “Okay then,” she says, bringing her fingers to the edge of her smile, running over her bottom lip, a habit she wasn’t even aware of, but one he’d catalogued long ago. It usually happened when he’d said something she liked, embarrassment and acceptance mixed into a mannerism so uniquely her. A smile usually followed, ducked head, and dimpled cheeks.

She didn’t disappoint.

“You’ll grow to love them,” he says, turning his back to her briefly to shut off the light.

“Grow to love what?” She asks, adjusting her pillow back underneath her, the suffocation of her humiliation having passed.

“The sweatpants,” he says with a satisfied grin.

“Those things are never coming back into this bed,” she says with finality, a teasing glint reflecting back at him.

As it turned out, that was not the last time those pants entered the bed, although more often than not they were adorned by the woman who’d not only stolen his heart but also his favorite pair of sweatpants.


	74. Chapter 74

"Oh my God! Oh my God! What the hell just happened?"

Ginny looked at her friend with tired eyes, and a confused look painted on her face.

“What?” She says with a shrug of her shoulder, causing the hair tucked behind her ear to escape, flooding her face with a cascade of curls over her.

Evelyn’s mouth hangs open, incoherent sounds escaping, but no actual words. Her eyes are huge, and her hand is gripping the counter like her life is dependent on the support being offered by the granite.

“You…you…who was on the phone?” She finally gets out, a sly grin on her face, her grip moving to transfer itself to Ginny’s good arm.

“Umm, no one,” she tries to back out of the conversation leading nowhere good, but her friend’s claws have already sunk deep into her, demanding answers, and the brief exchange she’d had on the phone comes screeching back to her.

“Was that _Mike_ ,” she says, accentuating the emphasis on his name in a screech that was several decibels out of Ginny’s range.

Her mouth goes straight, her brows furrowed with denial on the tip of her tongue, but she knows her friend suspects _something_ is up.

“Maybe,” she decides to taunt, and the grip around her arm moves tighter, like a noose, squeezing information out of her piece by piece.

“Maybe? Like maybe you lost your damn underwear at his house type of maybe?” She squeals, wide eye grin staring up at her.

“This is getting weird,” she says, trying to back away.

“Ginny Baker, I swear, if you don’t give me details, I will march over there and check for myself,” she threatens.

“Nothing happened, Ev,” she says, awkwardly shrugging out of the vice grip, and walking over to down the glass of wine she’d been poured.

“’Nothing,’ she says,” Evelyn mocks. “You lost _something_ over there,” she hints to the conversation Ginny was quickly regretting having had.

“The only thing I’m losing is my mind with all these questions,” she says with a huff, flopping into the chair.

“Come on, Gin, help a girl out. Blip’s been sleeping on the couch, I need _something_ to tide me over,” she begs.

Ginny cringes at that.

“You do realize I’m injured, right? There is no strenuous activity going on. None,” she says with a glare, before glancing down at the offensive sling she’d been wearing for a month.

“Then what was the phone call about?” She asks, point blank.

“Nothing,” she starts, but quickly amends her statement when she sees the glare being sent her way. “He just couldn’t find his phone charger,” she baits.

“Okay…and why would you know where it is?”

“I don’t…know where it is,” she says moving to take a sip from her glass only to find it empty with a slight pout. “Which is why I told him where mine might be…” she says, getting up to get more wine.

Evelyn’s eyes nearly pop out of her head.

Ginny takes a deep breath, counting silently to herself before the rain of questions begin.

Her friend plants her hands on the counter, leaning over to where she is making direct eye contact with her.

“And umm, Ginny, why is your phone charger at Mike’s house?”

She refuses to open her eyes, her next words coming out in the dark, only heightening her hearing to the squeal that erupts from her friend as she admits that maybe all her belongings are at Mike’s.

“YOU LIVE TOGETHER!?”

“I’m going to be deaf,” she says to no one in particular, because her friend had long since stopped paying attention to her, and was instead likely planning the wedding of two teammates who had agreed to move in together out of convenience, and had buried the almost kiss from the surface, only able to silently torture her with every laugh, brush of his hand, or offer of help that came on the daily.

But other than that, completely platonic. Nothing but friendship going on.

“Details, now,” Evelyn demands.

She motions for her to friend to pour her another glass, her inability to hold and pour lost with only one arm. The glass is quickly filled, and more words are expected of her.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she says, moving to take a drink. “He offered me a room, I put up a fight, he eventually convinced me, and now I live at Casa de Mike,” her bottom lip worried, hoping she made it sound as non-romantic as possible.

Her friend nods, before turning back to the couch. Ginny follows, skepticism etched on her face, Evelyn having never been one to let things go.

They sit in silence, Ginny awkwardly jittering in her chair.

“32,” Evelyn blurts out.

“…Questions you’ve asked me today?” Ginny jokes, not sure if her friend is having an aneurysm from the news or just seriously lost it at this point.

“Days. I give you 32 days before you’re breaking doctor’s orders and straining that arm of yours in some compromising position with Mike,” she says with a devilish grin, holding up her glass of wine in salute, before taking a sip, as if sealing their fate.

This time it’s Ginny’s turn for her mouth to drop.


	75. Chapter 75

Ginny usually hated when people gave her nicknames, but for some reason, Mike got away with it.

The first time it had slipped out in casual conversation was over the phone. They’d been talking late into the night, like they normally did, until one or both of them passed out. He must have noticed she was responding less and less, her heavy eyelids threatening to end the conversation. But as she fought to stay conscious, just resting her eyes, he tried to wrap it up, telling her goodnight, with the nickname attached.

Her eyes had flown open at that, her mouth unable to respond, but now fully awake and wondering what had brought the endearment on. She’d let it ruminate in her mind for a while until sleep overtook her, and the memory faded.

It was several weeks later when she’d heard it again. He’d been trying to convince her to come out with him, but her tired muscles were begging for a night in. Take out and Netflix calling her name. She vividly remembers him stepping into her space, the muggy air becoming just a bit hotter as his thick frame stood in front of her, encroaching on surpassing the level of professionalism they’d demanded from each other since she came back from her injury.

The night of their almost kiss came rushing to her mind, the way they’d stood too close, the hug that was probably too tight, the lingering of their mouths a breath away from each other that was definitely too strong of a pull to tear them apart, the ringing of a phone the only tangible thing able to have them flying back to their respective spots.

Her back hit the cool concrete shaking her from her reverie, and she saw the quirk of his lip at the sigh that had escaped from her.

She’d ducked her head, refusing to let his eyes steal her away, convince her that anything other than her curled up in bed with Michael Scofield and a pizza was more appealing.

But then he’d pulled out all the guns, including the nickname that was apparently not a mistake on the phone that night, as he used it in full daylight, conscious mind present.

Upon hearing it, she was tempted to punch him in the arm, tell him to stop. But instead she spreads that dotted smile he apparently loves so much with a shake of her head, and she knows that she’ll ditch the comfort of her bed for whatever he has planned.

Her allowance, never correcting him, has him saying it more and more, replacing Rookie and Baker almost exclusively with it. Ginny and Gin still reign supreme, but this new name seems to make its appearance in front of others now.

Blip’s eyes go wide the first time he hears it, and she doesn’t miss the narrowing glare he shoots at Mike like a warning. It’s only when the others try to mimic Mike, thinking they can get away with it too, that she confronts him.

“Stop!” She demands the next him he uses it, asking her what she wants for dinner.

“Okay, we won’t have Mexican,” he holds up his hands in surrender.

“No, the nickname. Stop,” she explains, wringing her hands together, not really wanting him to end it, but the evidence of how far past the line of impropriety they were was becoming more and more obvious, and this seemed the most direct way to settle it.

He grips the steering wheel tighter, a fallen look gracing his face, covered mostly by the overgrown beard, but having spent so much time with him, the imperceptible changes weren’t easily hidden from her.

“Got it,” he says with a shrug. “It won’t happen again,” he assures her.

Silence hangs between them in the car as he drives aimlessly around the city.

“Mexican is fine,” she acquiesces, refusing to allow the awkwardness envelop them fully.

The next couples weeks are uncharacteristically overcast inland, the sun hidden by clouds, mirroring the image of Ginny, whose smile seems to allude her, as Mike reverts back to avoiding her as best he can. Baker is used exclusively to address her, nothing more than a teammate. Giving her ample time to finish binge watching her show, and the pile of takeout fighting for space in her fridge.

When the frustration teeters on boiling over inside her, she finds herself standing outside the glass house, her sullen face reflected back to her.

“What are you doing here, Baker?” He gruffly greets her, but she refuses to let it deter her, pushing past him into the kitchen.

“I umm, I came…to…uhh, apologize,” she says, her fingers coming to the corners of her mouth.

He throws out his hand, waving her off. 

“It’s fine, I get it,” he says with a shrug, coming to sit on the stool across from her, Ginny having commandeered the kitchen space as her own.

“No, it’s not…I like it,” she admits with a shy smile, and a small twitch of her nose.

He places his chin in his hand, staring at her like she’d grown three heads, a silly grin plastered on his face.

“I just…maybe not…in front of the guys, you know,” she says with a shrug.

“I think I can mange that. I’ll write it on a post-it or something, you know my mind’s not what it used to be,” he teases with a wink, his trademarked Old Man nickname having ceased along with her own.

“We could just tattoo it on you, then you won’t have to worry about losing the post-it. We know how you get,” she jokes.

He lets out a laugh, causing her smile to appear through the clouds.

“I see someone finally had some free time to finish her show,” he grins with a teasing lilt.

She nods.

“We good?” She asks, and he stands at that, coming over to stand before her, his hands lingering in the air, unsure of where to place them.

“We’re good.”

She fights back a smile, her eyes meeting his own.

“So umm, can I ask…why? Why that nickname?” She says a flash of curiosity dotting her brown eyes.

It’s then that his hands hesitantly find purchase on the sides of her face, and she knows he can hear the intake of her breath as his fingers settle on her cheeks, a nervous smile coming to her.

His thumbs find their way to the hollowed spots on her cheeks.

“Here,” he punctuates with a tip of his fingers into the indents.

This only causes Ginny’s dimples to further hollow, a full blown smile overtaking her face.

“See, sunshine,” he confirms.

She shakes her head at him.

“You’re so full of it.”

“Yeah, well, it also acts as irony when you’re a pain in the ass,” he teases.

“I’m only a pain in the ass when you’re a cranky old man,” she throws back at him.

“Nice try, Sunshine.”

And they both smile at that.


	76. Chapter 76

"You could've told me this beforehand!"

I didn’t think it was important,” she waves him off, continuing to stretch by the pool, her green mat resting against the concrete, as she contorts herself into a pose Mike had once described as a pretzel reaching for the sky.

“You didn’t think it was important to let me know Avery was a boy?” He asks gruffly, his hands resting on his hips, his forehead scrunched in disbelief, the worry secreting out of his words.

She laughs upside down, the raspy sound meeting him with a frown.

“It’s not a big deal,” she tries to reassure him. “She’s four, Mike,” she gets out with another laugh, before turning herself upright, her long legs out before her, resting back on her hands, her stomach exposed.

“That’s when it starts,” he throws out, like Ginny had just pimped out their daughter.

The knowing smile creeps onto her face. 

“I don’t know what kind of playdates you were having at four years old, but if anything, it’s Kaia calling the shots,” she reasons with a raised eyebrow.

Their precocious daughter was a sweetheart, but she knew exactly how to charm her way into getting whatever she wanted, Mike being her biggest target, spoiling her rotten.

“What do you know about this kid, anyway?” He asks with a sigh, coming to sit on the chair nearest to her.

She reaches out to rest her hand on his bent knee.

“He’s five…he goes to her pre-school…he’s cute…has the bluest eyes,” she describes the little boy, and the frown deepens on Mike’s face as she carries on with his features.

“Okay, stop,” he holds up his hand. “I don’t want to hear anymore,” rubbing his palms across his face in frustration.

She gets up, kneeling in between his legs, her other hand coming to rest on the opposite knee. Her brown eyes meeting his troubled ones.

“Mike,” she says, grabbing his attention. “She said she was going to play catch with him. Hell, if anything, she’s probably already given him a black eye with the ball,” she says with a teasing glint in her eyes.

“You think?” He asks, hopeful.

“I’m gonna pretend you’re not excited by the prospect of our daughter hurting another kid, and say, yes,” she admits with a shake of her head.

He at least pretends to look guilty for the thought, letting out a heavy sigh, letting his hands come to rest on top of Ginny’s.

“She’s…” he starts, squeezing her hands. “She’s my little girl,” he admits, softly, his eyes downcast. “It’s too soon…”

“For her to be hanging out with boys?” Ginny asks with a laugh.

“No,” he says with a laugh of his own. “For her not to need me to play catch anymore.”

Realization crosses her face, and she loosens her hand from his grip, bringing it to his face, her fingers finding the part of his cheek not covered with that beard she loved so much.

“Oh Mike, she’s always gonna need you,” she assures him. He’d only ever known abandonment, being replaced with someone better, and in some cases, someone younger.

“Sure,” he says with a shrug of his shoulder, not fully convinced.

“I promise you,” she says with a stroke of her finger under his eye. “She’s always gonna need you.”

“I am pretty great,” he admits with a wink.

“Eh, you’re okay,” she says with a scrunch of her nose, dotted smile in play for him.

That night, as Kaia is relaying her day for them with big, wild gestures, she runs into Mike’s arms, bouncy curls trailing after her.

“Daddy, he can’t catch,” she admits with eyes wide, and disbelief painted all over her face.

“He can’t?” Mike asks in a surprised voice, causing her dimples to appear in the form of a smile.

“Not good like you, Daddy,” she says, maneuvering her way over him like he was a jungle gym, until she’s snuggled on his lap, her head resting against his chest, right where she belongs.

Ginny shoots him a knowing look from beside him, taking in the picture of the two of them.

“That’s my girl,” he says, placing a soft kiss on Kaia’s head.


	77. Chapter 77

"Hey Baker, you doing anything this Saturday?"

Ginny looks around, as if he were speaking to someone else, despite him having used her name. Her ponytail whips across her shoulder, the movement causing its chaos.

“Me?” She asks, stalling for time, clarifying the question.

“You see anyone else named Baker around here?” He asks, a sly grin appearing on his face, eyes sparkling with the chase. He’d asked her this question before, several times in fact. And every single time she’d played it off like she was busy, using every excuse in the book.

“Not a good idea,” she tries to warn, glancing around at the other guys, garnering attention from a few, but all ducking their heads.

“Come on, I don’t bite,” he says with a wink. “Unless you’re into that,” he goads, and her eyes narrow at the comment.

She can hear the intake of breath from several of her teammates, a few shaking their heads at what’s to come.

She steps closer, and his eyes alight with joy, the prey coming to him.

“You couldn’t handle this,” she threatens, attempting to joke, play nice, but they’re quickly bordering on misconduct, and she’s not afraid to put him in his place.

He raises his eyebrow in a dare.

“Try me,” he says.

His eyes growing wide as a firm hand lands on his shoulder, yanking him back with a heavy tug.

“What’s this? You inviting the team to hang out on Saturday?” Mike asks with a slap on the back of the newest rookie. “That is so nice, but you see, Baker here, she’s busy.”

“Is that so?” He says, never swiping the shit eating grin off his face.

“Yep. She’s got plans already,” he says, throwing a look back at Ginny, who’s got her arms crossed, a glare pointed at the two of them.

She comes up, nudging Mike out of the way, making direct eye contact with the guy who never seemed to take no for an answer.

“I’m not interested. Don’t ask me again,” her raspy voice reprimanding him like a small child, before turning to grab her things from her cubby around the corner.

She can’t hear what Mike threateningly whispers at him, but she hears the slap of his back as she stalks away, the guy unlikely to mess with her again. She hopes.

“The nerve of that guy, I swear,” Mike says, waltzing into her space, and pulling up the chair across from where she’s standing.

“Yeah, the nerve,”her voice tinged with sarcasm.

“You’re welcome—” He tries to say with a grin like he’d done her a favor.

“Ass,” she responds, catching him completely off guard.

“Me? I just—”

“Practically peed on him, marking your property…ME,” she frustratingly rasps at him.

“Whoa, no, that’s not—”

“That’s exactly what you did. I don’t need you to help all the time,” she points at him, grabbing her bag and making her way out of the clubhouse.

She makes it all the way to the car until she realizes that the swift exit plan wouldn’t be the case at all.

Throwing down her bag, she slides down to the pavement, burying her head in her hands, her knees bent in frustration, hiding from the sun beating down on her.

It’s not until she feels her shoe being kicked, a large shadow covering her that she knows her ride has arrived.

“Get in,” he pleads, and she reluctantly stands, opening the door and throwing her bag into the back before situating herself in the passenger seat.

They’re only five minutes into the drive, silence eating away at them when he speaks.

“I know you don’t need me,” he says with a shrug, the plaid he’s wearing creating a dizzying pattern in its motion. He glances over at her, the self-deprecation hidden behind his beard.

She lets out a heavy sigh.

“It’s not that I don’t need you,” she starts. “I just…I can handle things on my own, you know?”

“I know,” he agrees. Her abilities never questioned by him, except when it came to cooking, then he had his doubts.

“I can fight my own battles and whatever…” she says, pinching her bottom lip.

“I wasn’t trying to fight your battle for you, Gin,” he tries to explain. “I was just…trying to fight next to you, like partners,” he says, holding back a grin.

“Like a couple,” she broaches, a shy smile playing on her lips.

“Yeah, Gin, like a couple. I got your back, you got mine. That’s how it works. You know, like Bonnie and Clyde,” he says, his eyes stealing glances at her.

“More like Beauty and the Beast with that thing,” she says motioning to his beard.

“You do look good in blue and yellow, Beauty,” he says with a wink.

“You are so lame,” she teases, her hand finding its way to his forearm with a gentle squeeze. The thought of a happily ever after not such a bad thing.


	78. Chapter 78

"Mike, you're drunk. You don't know what you're saying."

“Ginny, Gin, I know exactly…what…I’m saying,” he slurs, holding up his drink, toasting the air, with sloshes of brown liquid sent toppling to the bar below.

“Clearly,” she sarcastically retorts with with a raise of her eyebrow.

She grasps the string of her hoodie, messing with the knot at the end, digging the material under her nail.

“You ready to go?” She asks flatly.

“Not…yet, one more,” he holds up his finger, but she reaches over him, pulling his finger into her grasp.

“Nope, no more,” she reasons, dropping his hand with a thump. She stands, maneuvering herself around the stool to his side.

“You’re no fun, that’s your problem, Baker, you never have fun,” he accuses her, the instinct to act offended traces her face, but she throws it to the side in favor of amusement.

“Mmhmm, that’s my problem. Not drunk catchers calling me to come down to the bar,” she says while trying to lift him up. “You’re gonna have to help me here, old man.”

He stumbles up from his seat, leaning far too much of his weight on her. Her thin frame crumbling underneath him.

Wrapping his arm around her, his alcohol breath swooshes around her, and she cringes a little.

“You smell good,” he admits.

“That makes one of us,” she throws back at him, but he’s too drunk to pick up on the insult.

They slowly make their up to her room, precariously balancing themselves against walls and door frames until they finally make it inside. 

He flops against the bed, face first, slowly crawling his way up to her pillow.

“Great,” she mutters under her breath, as he sprawls out to take over most of the mattress.

She sits down on the opposite side she usually sleeps on, her back towards him, pushing the curls out of her face with a heavy sigh.

“What happened tonight?” She asks, but is met with silence.

Glancing back behind her thinking he might have fallen asleep, he stares back at her, eyes full of something she can’t quite label.

“It’s over,” he murmurs into the pillow.

“You and Rachel?” She whispers, not knowing the right emotion to convey at this moment. Relief. Hope. Sadness. A mixture of all of them.

He nods, his beard making a scratching noise against the sheets, filling the silence with his confirmation.

“I’m sorry,” she says, the only thing she can think to speak in that moment.

He rolls over onto his back with a grunt, causing her to swing her feet into the bed, sitting with her knees up, looking down on him for guidance on where this conversation was going.

“I’m not,” he admits, his hands coming to his face, attempting to rub the alcohol out of himself. “It had been over for a long time. Before she cheated, really. Just took me a while to…realize it.”

“Why’d you come here?” She broaches, ready to offer him friendship, the kind they’d been carefully avoiding since he got back together with his ex.

“I meant what I said,” his voice sounding more sober than before.

Her lips purse.

“You’re drunk,” she reasons with herself.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” he reasons, reaching out, fumbling with her position, settling for an awkward grip on her foot.

The spot tingling where his thumb rubbed against the arch.

“Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow, you know…new day…new…view,” she tries to argue, instead coming out stilted, and shaky.

“Sure, Gin,” he agrees, releasing his grip on her.

“Right,” she says, moving under the covers, placing a sheet in between them and hoping it was enough. “Goodnight,” she says out loud, indicating her attempt at sleep, though it was bound to allude her with him so close.

“Night, Ginny,” he says with a laugh.

The lay in silence, the darkness enveloping them with all that had and hadn’t been said.

“I meant it,” he breaks the silence, and she hopes he can’t see the quiet smile spreading across her face.


	79. Chapter 79

Ginny nervously adjusts the sweater she’s wearing; Evelyn’s insistence that she wear a dress having fallen on deaf ears. The comment ‘ _Who am I trying to impress?’_ not going over well in defense of her choice, even now as every wife and girlfriend of her teammates were dressed up, and there was Ginny, cream sweater and jeans.

She grabs a drink, knocking back the dark liquid, her curls swaying with the motion.

“You’re telling me you couldn’t find anyone to accompany your fine ass here tonight?” Her friends asks, taking a sip of her wine, her eyebrow arched in curiosity. She’s prying for information she already knows the answer to.

“Yep,” she says with a pop of her lips, taking another drink for herself, the crowd milling around her, smiles of cheer present.

“I’m sure _someone_ would’ve gladly taken you,” she continues, emphasizing the someone to her, as a subtle as a mallet to the head.

She lets out a raspy scoff.

“You’re lucky I’m here at all. I’m not in the mood for this,” she gestures to everyone, parading around like it was the happiest time of year, while the frown of her pouty lips becomes more prominent.

Evelyn comes to wrap her arm through Ginny’s, pulling the grumpy ballplayer closer to her.

“You’re like Ginny the Grinch over here,” she teases, Ginny’s unmoving frown only quirked in a look of disapproval.

“I’m not the one stealing joy,” she sarcastically bites out.

“Right, right. I know,” her friend tries to placate her.

There’s not mistaking the moment he walks, or rather stumbles in, clean shaven and wild eyes searching the crowd.

Their teammates crowd around him, slapping him on the back with a well executed joke about his face, the gasps echoing their way to the two women across the room.

The shock of a barefaced Mike a surprise she’d already witnessed, the younger face of her captain looking more reminiscent of the poster on her wall than the man she’d come to know.

Her arm is squeezed, nails digging into her skin.

“Oww,” she says, shaking off her friend. “I’d like to make it spring training, Ev,” she reasons, rubbing the pinched skin of her arm.

“Looks like your date has arrived,” Evelyn proclaims with a giddy eyes.

“He’s not my date,” she mutters under her breath.

“Well your not-date is coming over here,” she points. And sure enough, Mike is pushing aside the guys, eyes locked on Ginny as he makes his way through the crowd, only almost falling once.

“Smooth,” she shoots at him before he can even get a word out.

“Come on, Ginny, just talk to me,” he begs. But she crosses her arms, sinking further into her oversized sweater, thankful she had worn that now.

“There’s nothing to say, you made that real clear,” she seethes, eyes narrowed.

“Gin–”

“Don’t,” she holds up her hand. “Just…don’t,” she says with a frustrated hand coming to run over her forehead.

“Ginny, I was only thinking about you,” he pleads.

She scoffs again, and she sees Evelyn’s eyes grow wide next to her, refusing to give them privacy.

“Sure, you were,” she dips her head, her bottom lip coming between her teeth.   
“ _You_ were thinking about _me_ so much that you didn’t bother to ask what _I_ might want,” she tries not to yell.

He groans, a hand coming to run over his beard, only to find a vacant space, a frustrated hand flopping to his side.

Stepping forward, her head pops up at his proximity. 

“I was just trying to protect you,” he all but whispers, the smell of alcohol escaping his lips and hitting her in the face.

“Yeah?” She asks, brown eyes tearing up. “Then why didn’t you—”

“Hey man, whoa!” Blip states, joining his wife and friends. His hand reaches out, lightly slapping Mike on the face. “That is baby smooth,” he says, ignoring the palpable tension in the air.

“Uhh, yeah,” Mike answers with a false, brief smile.

Ginny refuses to look at him, lowering her head, her arms coming to wrap around her even tighter.

“Am I missing something?” Blip asks, before grabbed by his wife, reluctantly leaving with a ‘ _So much,’_ uttered from Evelyn as they leave.

“So what? We’re just never going to talk again?” Mike asks, the alcohol fueling his desperation, tinged with anger at himself.

“I don’t know,” she whispers with a shrug.

“Come on, Rookie, you can’t resist this,” he says with a grin, attempting to reach out to her.

“But apparently you can,” she mutters, bringing her eyes to meet him, flooded with hurt.

“Ginny,” he breathes, like an instinct.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” she admits, shifting on her feet awkwardly.

“I’m not,” he counters.


	80. Chapter 80

"Baker, did you leave your hotel room open?"

They’re walking down the hall of the hotel, her raspy laughter echoing off the walls, leftover pizza in her hand and a smile on her face.

“What?” She asks, walking behind Mike having fallen behind when he’d admitted he liked to drink milk with his pizza, the distaste on her face having turned into a fit of giggles to his frowning grin.

“Your door is open,” he says, completely serious, holding out his arm for her to stop behind him.

She freezes, backing herself up against the wall, as he makes his way to the doorframe, checking to see if anyone is in there. Her hands start to sweat, the box of food feeling heavy to her all of a sudden. The once steady beat of her heart begins to pound, as if a jackhammer is in the chest, beads of sweat forming on her chest.

His voice doesn’t even register until he’s hovering over her, having sunk to the ground at some point. He’s kneeling with a groan as his knees crack, but his hands come to rest on her knees, her sad, pleading eyes begging him to help.

“Ginny,” he says, calmly, but his eyes suggest to her her current state is one he’s unaccustomed to. The invasion not only of her open doored hotel room, but the vulnerability in the breakdown she was having.

Her hand is on her chest, having abandoned the box, pushing tightly against the bone, trying to contain the erratic beating that pulses in her ears.

“Breathe, Gin. In,” he mimics, breathing along with her. “Out. There you go,” he coaches, keeping in time with the steady weight of his hands.

They stay there for several minutes, breathing in time with each other, his heavy breath, and her faint gasps, steadying to one single, strong exhale, her heart eventually syncopating with his own to where she no longer feels the panic coursing through her.

“You okay?” He asks, having never moved from in front of her, his palms balancing his weight on her knees.

She nods, not trusting her voice in that moment.

His hand hesitantly reaches out, as if debating with itself before pushing the fallen curls out of her face, and collapsing into a sit.

“Hope you didn’t hurt your knees, old man,” she rasps out with a sad smile.

“Eh,” he smirks. “These old bones can take a beating.”

“Good to know,” she sighs.

“So uhh, your hotel,” he motions with his thumb to the door next to them on the wall.

“How bad is it?” She cringes, waiting to hear everything she owns is gone.

“It doesn’t appear anything is gone, you probably just forgot to close your door…”

“Wait, really?” She says, moving to stand up, wobbly legs underneath have her leaning on the wall.

“You should probably check yourself, but it doesn’t seem like anything was touched,” he reassures her.

“So I just…great,” she sighs, bringing her forehead to the wall in frustration.

“Does that happen often?” He asks, slowly moving to stand with her. “The panic attacks, I mean.”

“Why? You think they make me weak?” She immediately becomes defensive, wrapping herself up in her hoodie.

“Nope,” he admits with a grin, stroking his beard. “Shit, if anything, I think you’re even stronger for dealing with that along with everything else.”

His statement, has her balking for a second, before a dimpled smile peeks out.

“You’re human, Baker. I never thought otherwise.”

This time when her heart starts beating erratically, she knows it’s not so much panic, but the heat from her cheeks at a sentiment that she was inevitably falling further for the guy who always seemed to be there for her in one way or another.

“Thanks,” she says with a shrug. “But I still think you’re weird for drinking milk with pizza,” she says with a visible cringe.

“I had beer with my pizza,” he challenges.

“But if you were home, eating pizza by yourself…” she baits.

“By myself, where I wouldn’t have to hear you talk shit about it, yeah, I’d have milk,” he admits.

“See, that. That’s not right,” she says, bumping his shoulder.

“Just grab your pizza and get in here,” he motions towards the abandoned box.

He stands in the doorway waiting for her, and as she passes she stops, meeting his eyes.

“But really, thank you,” she says with a bite of her lip, then walks by him into the hotel, and he follows her in, locking the door behind him.


	81. Chapter 81

Ginny hadn’t wanted to go out. She had wanted to go back to her hotel room, snuggle into bed with Mike, call Evelyn, and have her baby babble at her incoherently before shutting her eyes to the world and wasting away the hours until she could get on a plane and fly back to Kaia.

It was her first away trip from her daughter, and while she was trying really hard to rein in her emotions, and keep things professional, reminding herself that this was something she’d chosen, she couldn’t help but feel the tugging of her heart being separated from her baby for this long.

And where Ginny had mastered the art of schooling her expressions, Mike had completely thrown in the towel and was surly with his distaste for being away, and this wasn’t even his first time.

During Ginny’s time out, Mike had been able to calm himself with the knowledge that Kaia was with her, safe and sound. But now that they were leaving her with Evelyn, the facade of just how okay he was with the situation had slipped off, and what they were met with resembled more of an angry bear, demanding proof of life be presented to him it seemed every hour.

Ginny would’ve found herself laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, but she was able to reap the benefits of his demands while appearing to maintain some modicum of composure.

Their teammates had teased them endlessly, all but dragging them out to the club, and so there they were. Sitting in a booth, pretending to have some semblance of fun out, while she found him checking his watch every five seconds, his leg bobbing up and down with impatience, while her fingers hovered over the send button on her texts with Evelyn, not wanting to bug her friend.

They were quite a pair, both having surrendered themselves up to the mercy of their daughter, her tiny hands having both her parents wrapped securely around her little fingers.

“You guys are worse than I was with the twins,” Blip practically yells over the music, sitting down at the booth they were currently residing in.

“Does it ever get easier?” Ginny asks, a deep sigh at the thought of having to say goodbye again, over and over, the scene replaying in her head.

“No,” he says with a laugh. 

“Great, thanks for all the help,” Mike barks at him, pulling out his phone the background illuminating to show a picture of a smiling Kaia staring back at him, before tossing the phone on the table with a frustrated sigh.

“I think the separation is harder on Mike than it is Kaia,” Ginny teases, her hand finding itself resting on his thigh with a reassuring squeeze.

“It always is,” Blip agrees. “Just wait until she gets older and can talk, then it gets really hard.”

Ginny cocks her head, pursing her lips, fighting a smile, at how tense Mike is underneath her touch at Blip’s words.

“Not helping,” she mouths at her friend.

He holds up his hands, signaling the white flag, before taking a drink.

“She should’ve called by now,” Mike says, throwing his hand out at the silent phone resting on the table. “Right?” He asks, his voice dripping with irritation, but his eyes pleading with her to make it better.

“She’ll call,” Ginny tries to dispel his aggravation.

“What if something happened and that’s why she’s not calling?” He asks, a slight panic lacing his words.

Ginny holds back a laugh.

“Mike, she just sent a picture thirty minutes ago, I doubt anything’s happened since then.”

“You better be right, Baker,” he says with a grin towards her.

“I’m always right,” she says with a satisfied smile.

“I’m gonna go get us something to drink,” he says, getting up, leaving Ginny with Blip.

“Someone’s wound tight,” Blip throws out.

Ginny rolls her eyes, as she flips through the messages on her phone until the screen flashes to video, indicating a call.

Her face is immediately highlighted by excited dimples, as she accepts the video call and her baby’s face fills the screen.

“Hey Kaia bean,” she coos at the girl, but the music is loud and she can’t hear Evelyn’s response in the background.

“Hold on a sec, I need to go somewhere quieter,” she says, moving out of the booth, passing by Mike, as she motions to her phone.

He immediately abandons the drinks, following Ginny’s lead until they’re outside.

“Say ‘Hi,’” Evelyn says to Kaia, as the baby just wiggles, and makes faces at the phone being put in her face, the reaction of her parents far more entertaining.

Mike’s irritation immediately dissipating into one of lifted brows, and a smile not even his beard could hide. 

“There’s my baby” he says in a scratchy voice, as he tries to make it higher, attracting her attention.

A night out for the two of them now consisting of slinking out of nightclubs to speak to their baby daughter, Evelyn tickling the girl to get her to laugh into the phone.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.


	82. Chapter 82

"Ginny, will you join me for a dance?" Trevor asks her at a club.

Ginny eyes grow wide at his question, a sincere look staring back at her. She had no intention of dancing with this man, the past needing to stay in the past. They can share pleasantries, but anything past _“good game”_ was unnecessary.

As he stood in front of her, eyes eager, prepared to lay on the charm if she said no, the same way he’d gotten her the first time. But she knew better this time. She was no longer the naive minor league player living in Texas and in desperate need of human contact. 

Trevor had been fun, but their relationship had been built on a lie, and that wasn’t something she was interested in…boyfriends that blatantly disregarded her wishes.

She moves to open her mouth, smartly declining his offer when Mike, who had been standing beside her, moves himself almost directly in front of her, shielding Ginny from Trevor’s gaze, that seemed to be obviously traveling over her at this point.

“This your new guard dog?” Trevor jokes, the gruff look that Mike was sending at him not so much terrifying the younger man but amusing him.

“Mike,” she warns, grabbing onto his arm, her short nails still finding purchase in his skin and squeezing.

He doesn’t even hiss at the gesture, instead steeling himself even further in front of her.

“I think we’re good here,” he grunts out, but Ginny is seething at this point, practically pushing him away from in front of her. Eventually dropping her hand from his arm, before slinking between the men vying for her attention.

“Maybe you should let her speak,” Trevor offers, his confidence rubbing Ginny the wrong way.

The men both step in, almost squishing her in between them, their faces dangerously close to her and each other.

She can feel the angry heat coming off of Mike, and she turns her back to Trevor, instead focusing her eyes on Mike, her hand coming out to grab his chin, focusing his glare at her.

His eyes flicker with recognition at the seriousness of the situation, the annoyed way her brows furrow when she’s particularly frustrated with him.

“Back off,” she angrily whispers at him, and even though the music is loud, she knows he can make out what she’s saying, having become an expert at reading her ticks, every movement a telling piece of the puzzle.

He gives one more glance at Trevor, before turning and stalking off to find a chair at the bar.

Her head lowers, a deep sigh, thankful that at the very least that had been handled.

When she turns back around to Trevor, he’s wearing a satisfied grin as if he’d won.

“Wipe that grin off your face, I’m not dancing with you,” she bites at him.

His grows to confusion, and she just shakes her head.

“You wanted me to speak, right? Well the answer is no,” she fires at him, throwing her hair out of her face as she leaves him in search of a sulking Mike.

She sidles up to him at the bar, having already started nursing a beer, which she quickly makes her own.

“I see caveman Mike has graced us tonight,” she says with a swig of his, now her, drink.

He doesn’t acknowledge her comment, instead glancing over her shoulder, as if searching for something.

“Where is he?” He asks.

“Trevor? I sent him packing,” she says with a grin into the bottle.

“Ahh, so I was right,” he says with a satisfied grin of his own.

“No,” she says, her brows furrowing, and a hand coming out to smack his chest. “I can handle myself, old man. I don’t need the head of the geriatric department as a bodyguard, thanks.”

“Got it,” he says, his eyes never leaving her’s.

“Do you?” She asks with a gesture of her hand, flinging up in a way that has he him fighting back a smile.

He just nods at her, before signaling the bartender for another beer.

“Plus, I don’t want to dance, my back hurts, long day,” she explains with a dimpled smile, her excuse falling flat to Mike, knowing full well that was not the case.

He grabs his beer, bringing it up to knock the neck of her own drink.

“Welcome to the geriatric department, Rookie.”


	83. Chapter 83

“She knows,” Mike announces, pacing back and forth in front of the counter, his hand coming to run through his beard.

Ginny looks up at him, her brown eyes catching his with a confused look, her toast halfway to her mouth, paused mid-air.

“That you’re talking about her? Probably,” she laughs, shoving the toast in her mouth.

Kaia sits in her high chair next to her, happily gliding her buttered toast across her tray, the smear of glistening butter creating a slippery mess, that she’d dipped her hands in, and then applied to her hair haphazardly.

“Kids are smart,” he gestures towards his daughter. “They _know_ ,” he says, complete conviction in his eyes, his hands coming to rest on his hips.

Ginny purses her lips, fighting back a smile, nodding along, placating the man who was way too stressed this morning.

“Sure, sure,” she acknowledges him, scooping a forkful of eggs into her mouth.

Mike leans across the counter, his elbows coming to rest his weight, as he tries to make eye contact with the little girl.

“Kaia, baby, what did you see this morning?”

She momentarily looks up from her breakfast, food clinging to every part of her face, and her big eyes looking at her dad like he hung the moon.

“Daddy,” she says, pointing at him, and he throws up his hands with frustration.

“See, she saw, she definitely saw,” he says.

“Would you come sit down. You’re stressing me out just watching you, old man,” she claims, patting the seat next to her.

He meanders his way to the other side of the counter, placing a kiss on Kaia’s head before coming to sit on Ginny’s other side.

His posture is defeated, but his hands suggest stressed, Ginny glancing over every few seconds at his heavy sighs, as he stews.

“Is that normal?” He asks her.

She raises a brow at him, unsure of what he was referring to.

“Her…climbing out of bed…and…” he gestures with a grimace.

Ginny laughs.

“I think so, my mom said one time I climbed over my crib and just hung there because I was too scared to let go but too stubborn to cry out,” she says with a grin.

“So we got one of those kids that’s not too afraid to let go, great.”

Ginny turns to her right, as the girl squeals in delight at her toast.

“Are you a brave girl?” She asks in a horsey voice, only encouraging Kaia to squeal louder.

“Ginny,” he groans, unable to let the incident from this morning go.

“Mike, she didn’t see anything, and even if she did, she has no idea what was going on,” Ginny assures him with a comforting hand landing on top of his own.

His free hand scrubs over his face.

“I don’t want to…f-u-c-k her up,” he spells out, Kaia acting like a parrot these days, repeating everything.

Her hand comes to squeeze his fingers.

“Mike, you’re not going to mess her up,” she says, titling her head to make sure he was really listening to her.

He turns his hand over, gripping her, intertwining their fingers.

“I mean, if anything, it’ll be a team effort in messing her up,” she jokes, bumping his shoulder.

“True,” he says glancing around Ginny to Kaia. “For example, she’s already inherited your eating habits,” he nods towards the girl.

And there’s Kaia with both her cheeks puffed out, as if saving her eggs for later, storing them away in her cheeks like a little chipmunk.

Ginny laughs, and then turns to her plate, shoving a bunch of eggs into her mouth, puffing out her cheeks like Kaia, leaning her head against her’s.

“Yep, definitely a team effort,” he laughs at his girls.


	84. Chapter 84

Mike lay resting on the lounge chair, sweatpants and a white t-shirt hung from his frame, a discarded magazine from Ginny’s bag plopped open on his lap. The wind from the beach right outside their villa created a series of echoes that rung out over him, casting a spell of music that made any guest feel instantly more calm, serene than their hectic lives back home.

He can hear bare feet crunching in the sand when he peeks up from the magazine, to see Ginny soaking wet, her curls weighed down with water, the dripping of droplets cascading down every inch of her body that wasn’t covered in the gold bathing suit she had on, which if he were being honest, wasn’t very much hidden. She looked like some kind of sea goddess having emerged from the sea, gracing him with her presence.

“Get off your ass, old man. We’re going swimming,” she says, kicking his leg on the chair, getting his foot wet. But he remains frozen, unable to function with her standing in front of him…like that.

“You uhh,” he tries to form words, and a small grin appears on her face watching him fumble. “You going out like that?” He finally asks her, and her face falls.

“It’s called a bikini, Lawson. We’re on our honeymoon, which just so happens to involve a beach,” she reasons, gesturing towards the ocean that she just came from. “So uhh, yeah, I went swimming in a bathing suit. You gotta problem with that?”

“Nope,” he says, tossing the magazine to the side. “Just was waiting for my invitation to join you,” he says with a cock of his head.

“Is that right?” She says, moving closer to his chair, the water dripping from her hair in stray patterns on his shirt, until she sits down on his lap, his arms immediately coming to wrap around her waist, her toes digging into the sand.

“You know when I suggested the beach for our honeymoon, I didn’t actually expect to see the water all that much,” he jokes with a waggle of his eyebrows.

She smiles a dimpled laugh, pushing at his chest.

“Should’ve known better, Lawson. I love the beach,” she says, her forehead coming to rest on his.

“Noted. Baker loves the beach,” he sighs.

She shakes her head against him, her hands coming to rest on the sides of his face, resting on his beard.

“Baker-Lawson,” she horsely whispers, before punctuating the meaning with a kiss, that has him pulling her closer by the hips. Her words sinking into him, the realization that she was his wife, a notion he still couldn’t quite grasp, despite his grip on her.

Ginny leans back, biting her bottom lip.

“Race you to the water,” she says, hopping up from him, running backwards for a moment to see if he was coming, a bright smile radiating her face, the sun threatening to dry her.

“Come on, old man,” she teases.

He pretends to slowly get out of the chair, until he gets close to her, and then takes off in a run, and she chases after him.

“Not fair, Lawson,” she yells, as he makes it to the water.

“Funny, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” he teases with a nod to her bikini.


	85. Chapter 85

"Would you stop laughing at me Baker! It's not funny!"

Mike holds out Kaia as far away from his body as possible, her little limbs wiggling around, a teeny dimpled smile on her face.

Ginny can’t contain her horsey laugh from the bed, her body bending over, slapping the bed, before bringing her hands to cover her mouth. Her curls hang in her face, as she shakes with laughter, both at the situation and Mike’s reaction.

“Would you stop laughing at me Baker! It’s not funny!” He demands, but the anger is fake, the laugh on the tip of his tongue as he stares down at the white t-shirt he’s wearing, completely covered in baby poop.

“She thinks it’s funny,” Ginny says, motioning to their little girl, Mike’s face scrunched in complete disgust, but hiding a smile at the situation.

“This is disgusting!” He claims, staring at Kaia, having exploded her diaper, poop crawling up her back, and a very distinct smell emanating from her, coloring the room with an odor that had Ginny rolling on the bed.

“It’s your turn,” she says with a shake of her head, her laughter refusing to quit.

“No, help, she is no help,” he whispers at the baby as he brings her into the bathroom to wash her off.

Ginny crawls off the bed, the old t-shirt she’d long since stolen from Mike hitting her knees, as her bare feet slap the hardwood floor following after the two of them.

She leans against the doorframe, her ankles crossed, a dimpled grin spreading across her face as she watched Mike try to navigate cleaning their daughter off, still sporting the shitty shirt.

“You wanna give me a hand? Or are you just going to laugh at me from there?” He says with a raised eyebrow, a teasing lilt to his words.

Ginny moves to the tub, collapsing to her knees, and bending over to grab one of Kaia’s hands, as she rests in Mike’s hand as he rinses off her back. Her little fingers wrap around her mother’s finger, and Ginny shakes it up and down making faces at the little girl.

“You’re making Daddy work tonight, huh?” She coos at her, who peeks up at her through her long lashes, unbothered by the warm water, and the chaos she’d caused.

“My knees and back thank her,” Mike throws out, as he gently bathes his daughter. His words say one thing, but his tone is laced with such an adoration for the baby girl who’s had him wrapped around her finger since he found out about her. One terrifying experience after another, the blind leading the blind when it came to child care, a guessing game of sorts in how to handle every situation that arose.

“Nut up, old man,” Ginny teases, nudging him with her elbow, and he throws her a challenging look.

“Let me remind you who is covered in shit right now, Baker,” he points out, and it causes Ginny to start laughing again.

Finishing up, he lifts Kaia up from the tub, as Ginny wraps her in a towel, cuddling her into her chest.

“There we go, clean bean,” she coos into her girl. Glancing up, Kaia tucked under her chin, she sees Mike, shaking the water off of his hands, still looking a mess.

“You, on the other hand, should take that shirt off,” she says with a grimace.

He stills, a wry grin making its way across his face, before making his way, slowly towards them.

“If you want to check me out without a shirt, you can just come out and say it, Gin,” he teases.

“You’re so full of shit, Lawson. Literally.” she says with a smile, holding out her hand to stop him, but refusing to actually touch him.

“Just wait, it’s your turn next time,” he warns.

“You wouldn’t do that to me would you, Kaia bean?” She asks, kissing the top of her head, and slowly edging out of the bathroom.

“What, no kiss for me?” He says, holding out his arms, displaying the damage in its full form.

Ginny turns back towards him. 

“You can have one when you’re clean too,” she says with a little laugh.


	86. Chapter 86

"Mike put our daughter down she is no longer a baby..."

Mike balks at her comment, turning towards Ginny, who wasn’t supposed to be back until later that night, the surprise rising a smile to his lip, and a goofy face at their daughter.

Kaia’s long, gangly limbs hang limply on her dad’s hip, and her curls sway with laughter at her dad’s constant need to make her smile.

“You’re always gonna be my baby, what is she talking about?” He says matter of factly to the girl.

“Mama!” Kaia squirms, her long legs threatening to take Mike out with one swift kick, and he places her down, as she runs towards her mom.

Ginny is dressed in shorts and a tank top, her pulled in a high ponytail, the same style as their daughter.

Kaia runs towards Ginny, her cleats kicking up dirt in their wake, throwing herself at her mom, who scoops her up, placing her in the same position she’d just jokingly scolded Mike for.

“I see how it is,” he mocks, slowly walking towards the pair. “You just wanted her for yourself,” he says with a nod, and flick of his brow.

Kaia scrunches her face, pushing it towards Ginny’s until their noses touch, and they make the same adorable scrunch together, foreheads connecting them. A greeting they’d adopted as their own some years ago.

“I missed ya, Mama,” she declares. “You were gone a million years,” she dramatically announces, her arms spreading wide to measure time, before coming to meet Ginny’s cheeks, squishing her face in between her tiny, soon to be callused hands.

“I couldn’t miss my girl’s last game,” she says as if the thought was unthinkable.

“I’m gonna kick butt!” She declares, a sassy grin on her face, no other option available to her confidence.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Dad,” she jokes, tickling the girl.

“She’s is only speaking the truth. She’s awesome, she knows it,” he says like a proud dad who would think she was the best no matter her actual skill.

Kaia nods along with him, her mantra of positivity never going to her head, even as a kid, but rather spurring her on, amping her up if you will.

Ginny rolls her eyes at the two of them before lowering her head back down to her daughter’s forehead.

“But the most important thing is…” she prompts.

“Do work,” she says with a bob of her head.

“And…” Ginny says with a smile, Mike fighting back a laugh.

“Have fun and trust your team,” she whispers at her mom, as if it’s a secret only they know about.

“Love you,” Ginny whispers back.

As the team assembles, and the coach tries to round up the kids, Ginny realizes she has to reluctantly let her baby go.

She places her down on the ground, and Kaia immediately runs off to grab her glove.

Mike slides up to Ginny, swinging his arm around her shoulders.

“To old to be held, huh?” He teases.

She uses her hand to swat at his chest, her ring hitting him with a sharp edge.

“You wound me, Baker,” he says, pretending to hunch over. A raised eyebrow from her causing him to quickly correct. “Baker-Lawson.”

She nods at him with satisfaction, as he quickly kisses her, their reunion having been delayed by the mini-me having launched at herself at her mother.

“Our baby’s growing up,” she pouts, watching Kaia lug her bag into the dugout.

And before Mike can respond, a whirlwind of curls and dimples is bounding toward them again.

“Did you forget something?” He asks, her bright smile staring up at the two of them.

She motions with her finger for him to bend down to her height. Which he does with a grin.

And a little kiss is placed on his cheek, her giggles from the feeling of his beard traveling across the field.

“Good luck, Bean,” he says to her retreating form as she runs back to the dug out, BAKER-LAWSON emblazoned on her back.

“She’s still our baby,” Ginny says to a smitten Mike as they climb the stands to watch their baby play ball.


	87. Chapter 87

She can see Mike charging the mound as disbelief paints her face. Ginny jumps up and down, her hand holding onto her cap, her mouth hanging open, eyes wide.

He’s picking her up before she can comprehend what’s even happening, but soon the whole team is surrounding them, cheering and forming a tight-knit circle around them, pats on the back, and guys jumping, using others’ shoulders to propel themselves up.

“I won the bet!” He screams at her, his beard rubbing up against her cheek, and she’s laughing with her head thrown back, the excitement overtaking her.

The past few years had been something of a dream, sometimes a nightmare, where she found herself often pinching herself to make sure that she was in fact standing on the ground, her eyes fully open and aware of what was happening.

“Do you always have to be right?” She screams back at him, convinced there was no way the cameras would able to fight the crowd to be able to hear or see what they were saying to each other.

He bends over just a little, his mouth right at her ear.

“Not always…but I was right about this,” he teases. Pulling back, looking into her brown eyes that shimmered with something of pride at what they’d just accomplished.

“We did it,” he mouths at her, his words lost in the crowd.

She’d heard those words escape her lips so many times as a kid, proud of her accomplishments and sure that this was it, this was the moment she’d been working for, only to be told that they hadn’t done anything yet.

The words hadn’t been met with one of discouragement, in fact, the opposite, meant to keep her striving for something more.

These past few year years had had her really contemplating what that meant, what it was that she really wanted from life, baseball having consumed most of her attention.

But as she clung to Mike on the field, a big grin displayed on his face, mirroring the dimpled smile she couldn’t seem to wipe from her face, she realizes that he had been right.

When she thinks back on the last years, their journey to get here, hard work and tears, frustration, and pride tint some of those memories, but most of them involve him. From teammate, to friend, to something more and far more serious.

The question he’d presented several months ago, the evidence hanging from her neck, nestled somewhere near her heart. 

A habit the crowd probably came to wonder what was going on, her hand coming to her chest as a way to calm herself.

She looks up at him, confetti raining down from above, and pulls the necklace out of her jersey, the diamond ring she’d been hiding finally revealed.

“We ain’t done nothing yet,” she says with a nod of her head, and a raise of her eyebrow.

Mike taking cue from her, and pulling her in for a kiss that no camera or fan missed.

Making the bet that they’d win the World Series before anyone found out about them as a couple a reality, the smile on Mike’s face making it hard to figure out which one of these events made him happier.


	88. Chapter 88

_"Mike, there has been an incident; it involves Ginny."_

Mike pulls his phone out to check the time, the phone call from Blip coming at way too early of an hour after the night they’d had. But at the mention of Ginny’s name, he’s suddenly sitting up right in bed, his hand scrubbing over his face, immediate dread sweeping at his chest that something terrible had happened.

“You should probably get over here,” he says, no trace of teasing in his voice at all.

He can’t even remember getting dressed, just pure panic, as he races to his friend’s house, all the worst case scenarios screeching through his head, the logical side of him doing nothing to settle the nerves that coursed through his veins.

He’s walking into the house without even a knock, ready to witness the worst, his face fallen, and heart about to beat out of his chest, his hands only just now restoring blood flow, the grip on the wheel so tight he’d drained them of color.

“Where is she?” He demands, Blip startling at the bar of the kitchen.

“Jesus, man, did you race over here?” He says, a confused look on his face.

“You said an incident happened with Ginny? Is she okay?” He asks in rapid fire, Blip fighting back a smile at his questions, only riling Mike up further rather than settling his concerns.

“Follow me,” he says

Mike trails behind Blip, his face a mix of confusion and irritation, until they moved into the room of the boys, all the lights turned off, two bodies huddled on one of the beds. pillows strewn over their faces, bags of chips and chocolate treats littering the floor along with a trail of wine bottles, and empty glasses resting by them on the bed.

Mike throws a look at Blip, his eyes narrowing at having called him over for…this.

“She talks in her sleep, you know,” Blip suggests with a raised eyebrow, as if testing him.

“Yeah, I know. I heard it all the time on the bus,” pulling the fact up from the archive of Ginny he has stored in his head.

“She said some interesting things last night,” Blip teases, turning on Mike, and walking him out of the room. “Some things that damn well better be a dream and not the truth,” Blip says, pointing a finger at his chest.

Mike looks down at the affront before hitting his hand away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he assures his friend.

“Sure, Mr. Katy Perry,” Blip throws at him, the insult ruffling Mike the wrong way and causing a blush hidden by his beard to overtake his face.

“Funny,” he says, moving back into the room. His hand reaches out to shake Ginny awake.

“What are you doing, man? You don’t wake a sleeping bear,” Blip warns, knowing full well that if Evelyn was awoken in the process, he’d be done for.

“Thanks, I got it,” he says, as if Blip has been zero help.

“Come on, Gin,” he whispers, his hand reaching out to settle on her stomach, Blip’s view hidden by Mike’s frame.

“Noooo,” Ginny groans, trying to swat him away.

“Come on,” he says, practically picking her up, his own groan escaping at the twinge in his back from dragging her dead weight up into a sitting position, her hands shielding the sun like she was a melting from the light. Her curls stood wildly on her head, and her eyes squinted at the intrusion.

Evelyn stirred next to her, and the three of them stilled, not wanting to wake her up.

“I think we’re good,” he whispers, getting her into a standing position.

“I’m gonna be sick,” she moans into him, as they walk out of the room.

“Do it now, not in my car,” he warns, and she looks up at him with what could only be considered a pout and a narrowed eye. “Or you know, do it my car, sure, Baker,” he dismissively tells her.

“What happened last night?” She asks, scrunching her face as if trying to remember.

“Apparently, you almost outed all your secrets in your sleep,” he says, leading her into the passenger seat, Blip having gathered her things, passing them off to Mike.

“What did i say?” She questions with a cringe.

“Only good things about ole Mikey here,” Blip says with a hard slap to his back played off as a pat.

Ginny sinks into her hands, as Mike closes the door.

“Thanks for all the help,” Mike says sarcastically to his friend, moving to climb into the car.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he gets thrown back at him.

“I do,” he says, a sincerity he reserved only for Ginny coming through in his words.

“Take care of her,” he’s told, and he gets the sense he’s not just talking about the hungover mess that she is right now.

He gives a curt nod, before getting into the car.

“I will,” he says to himself, glancing over Ginny.

“Take me home,” Ginny all but pleads into her hands, the queasy feeling from standing washing over her.

“Any other requests?” He jabs, putting the car in reverse.

“Yeah, please stop talking, your voice is going to be the death of me,” she groans.

“Right back at you, sleep talker.”


	89. Chapter 89

"Mike, take that off right now!"

“What? I think I look pretty good with a little red to go with my blue,” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“You look ridiculous,” she says, unamused from where she sits perched on the couch. Her hair is swiped to the side of her head, and her barefeet are pulled up to rest on the cushion, enclosing herself with her own limbs.

“And if I look good in this, shit, think of how good you’ll look in it,” he teases with an air of truth in his voice, as he plops down next to her, grabbing hold of one of her knees as he goes, the wedding ring adorning his finger adding a shiver to her legs with his touch.

“I’m not doing it, so you can just take that off, and get back into the colors we both know you belong in,” she says with a twist of her head and a determined look shadowing her lips.

“Gin,” he says gently, removing the cap from his head, smoothing down his hair.

She refuses to look at him, instead focusing on the glittering rings adorning her own hands, twisting them around her finger, a nervous habit she’d adopted the minute the diamond had found its way to her hand years ago.

The calluses rubbing against the shiny metal, a contrast she was never able to wrap her mind around, the idea of having gotten everything she could’ve dreamed of as a kid not quite sitting right with her.

“Alright, let’s hear it. What are you scared of?” He pries, chewing on his gum, twisting himself to face her with a grunt, as she continued to stare at her hands.

“Scared? I’m not scared of anything, old man,” she says with a false bravado that he wasn’t buying for a second if the puff of air against her face was any indication of the silent laugh he was bolstering at her.

She peeks at him through her lashes, his face patiently waiting for her answer, he real answer.

With a deep sigh, she lowers her legs, his hand remaining on her knee even as it hit the cushion. Her hands stilling, this time busying themselves with his hand, wrapping them both around his large one, the diamond resting atop the pyramid of flesh.

“Is it so wrong to just be happy and not want to move?” She questions, glancing over at him, her big brown eyes begging for answers.

They’d been married for years at this point, survived his retirement, endless gossip, and family drama, their relationship the last thing she was worried about. His opinion something she valued, had since the beginning.

“No,” he answers with a bearded grin.

“Then why does everyone keep second guessing my decision?” She throws out frustratingly with a shrug of her shoulders. The hope that one day people would take her word for what it was, and not assume they knew better.

“I remember your rookie year, you telling me that Chicago was a good opportunity…”

“No, no. I very distinctly remember begging you to stay,” she says with a dimpled grin, not even about to deny that she had never wanted him to leave.

“Okay, fair enough. But I don’t think people are trying to tell you what to do, just making sure that you’re turning down something for the right reasons,” he assures her with a squeeze of his hand.

“What are the right reasons?” She says, her eyes wide, every trace of stubborn harbored momentarily to the fear of making the wrong choice.

“Only you’d know that, Rookie,” he says, placing the cap he’d discarded onto her head.

“Red’s not really my color,” she says, freeing her hand, her finger tracing over the bill.

“Sounds like a good enough reason to me,” he jokes, hitting the bill, tipping the cap into her face.

“Smooth,” she says dryly.

“You’re not a rookie anymore, you can choose what you want,” he says, tilting her chin up to see her face hidden underneath the hat.

“I don’t want to take the deal,” she says, firm, concrete.

“Then it looks like we’re staying here,” he confirms, lacing their fingers together.

“Yep,” she agrees, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“But for the record, red is definitely your color.”


	90. Chapter 90

"Ginny, tell me, is it too big?"

“Dirty,” Ginny says with a scrunch of her face, as she continues wrapping her gift.

“Eww, no, not when it comes to the baby,” he warns with a shake of his head.

“I’m kidding, you prude. It looks good,” she says, her tongue coming to stick out in concentration as she tries to figure out how to get the oddly shaped toy wrapped.

“You sure, because I can’t take it back, get a smaller one,” he worries, the usually confident man, overly so in some cases, only became a worrier when it involved his girls, and particularly the little one who had him wrapped around her finger.

“There’s no time, Christmas is tomorrow, old man.” The two of them having not heeded Evelyn’s advice and wrapped gifts as you go, instead leaving it all until the night before, Kaia’s first Christmas meaning a sleepless Christmas Eve for her parents.

“Fuck,” he grunts.

Ginny moves from her position, abandoning the half-wrapped toy, passing by Mike, who was also sprawled out on the floor with her.

“Now there’s the Christmas spirit,” she says with a laugh, brushing her hand against his beard as she makes a grab for her empty wine glass on the table.

“There’s just so…much,” he claims, overwhelmed with making his baby’s first Christmas special.

“Well the good news is she won’t remember any of this when she’s older,” Ginny says with a grin, pouring herself another glass.

He frowns at the comment.

“You want another one?” She asks, motioning to his drink.

“Nah, any more of these and you’ll be wrapping by yourself,” he says, his eyes getting sleepy.

She moves back into the room, plopping down on the floor with ease, her legs spread out so the wrapping disaster sits between her legs.

“At what point do we declare that a lost cause?” He asks, unable to hide the grimace at how ugly her wrap job is.

“You,” she says, pointing the glass at him with a squinted look towards him. “I’m going to be the one doing most of the unwrapping anyway,” she explains. “So you just shush.”

Mike holds his hands up in surrender.

She takes a sip of her drink, as Mike begins wrapping the next gift, taking his time, making the task look like an art form. A very slow art.

“Hey Santa Clause, you want to hurry it up over there,” she says with a giggle, finding her joke hilarious with the late hour and wine.

He strokes his beard, refusing to take offense to the comment.

“It’s not white,” he says with a cock of his head.

“Not yet,” she says into her glass, snorting with laughter at his face upon her comment.

“I’m not that old, Gin. Jesus.”

“There’s that Christmas spirit again,” she says, sliding on her butt over to where he’s sitting, positioning herself across from him, their legs pressed up against each other.

She leans forwards, a goofy grin on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says with a pout.

“Don’t give me that face,” he says, looking away. “Kaia does that all the time.”

“Yeah, where do you think I got it from? Works every time for her,” she says with a wink.

“You really think she’ll like this?”

“Us showering her with attention and gifts? Yeah, I’ll think she’ll like it,” Ginny assures him, reaching for his hand, scooting even closer.

His hand coming to rest on her cheek, before she leans in for a kiss, making his lips taste like sugar from the cookies she’d been snacking on.

“I’m still not going to wrap your gifts for you,” he says against her mouth.

“Come on, I’m so bad at it,” she says, giving him the Kaia face again.

“Nope, no way.”

“Ugh,” she says, pushing her curls out of her face. “Worst Santa ever,” she declares.

“But best Dad ever,” he says with a smile shot towards her.

“Now that I can’t argue with.”


	91. Chapter 91

"Ginny, your knight in shining armor is here! Now what exactly is the problem?"

She can hear Mike yelling as he enters her new apartment, a key having been given to him in case of an emergency. Sitting on the bed, she waits for him to find her, adjusting the sling on her arm nervously.

Upon reaching the door, the nerves escape her through a boisterous laugh, exposing her dimples on first sight.

“What are you wearing, old man?” She glances down seeing a hoodie, athletic shorts, and black socks with sandals, and she can’t even control the simultaneous cringe with her laughter.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you expect a ball gown at 1 a.m.? Let me just go change and leave you to…whatever it is you called me for at this time of night,” he teases, but she can see the red heating his cheeks at her ribbing.

“No, no,” she assures him, trying to stop her raspy giggles. “You look…fine,” she says with a quirk of her mouth, the kind that has him smiling at her attempt, but knowing the initial statement was true. 

“You sure? Because I didn’t know this outing had a dress code,” he tries to recover. “Plus, I figured you didn’t want me to come over how I usually sleep…”

“Naked?” She blurts out, her turn to become heated, her dimples peeking out again at her outburst.

“Nice try, but now that we know where you mind is,” he says with a wink. “What can I help you with?”

Pushing her curls to the side, she gestures at the window to the side of her bed.

“Nice view,” he comments, not understanding what she was wanting him to do.

“Yeah, it’s probably great looking in too,” she says, popping her hip out with a sarcastic grin.

“Why, do _you_ sleep naked?” He teases her, but she can see the nerves reflected on his face, afraid of the answer she’d give.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she says with a cock of her head, bouncing her curls around. “But I would rather my neighbors not know, so if you could…” she gestures again to the curtains lying across her bed, letting him off the hook for his comment, but the heat of her blush still radiating.

He slowly walks over to the window, seeing the curtains waiting to be strung up to give her some privacy.

“You…you called me over in the middle of the night to hang curtains?” He says, amusement with a tinge of irritation shadowing his voice.

“Well…yeah, I mean I can’t do it,” she says, frustratingly staring down at her arm tied up in a sling, immobilizing her from simple tasks, such as hanging curtains in her new place.

He must take pity on her, because he doesn’t question it any longer, instead making work at getting her her privacy.

Ginny lays down on her bed, her feet dangling over the edge, her arm resting comfortably next to her, her eyes closed to the rhythmic sound of her breathing, and the curse every once in a while coming from the bearded man across from her. Her lips tuck between her teeth whenever she hears it, fighting back a laugh.

Finally, she feels the bed dip, a warm body laying next to her own. Tilting her head to the side, she peeks open her eye to see Mike lying down, exhausted from a long day with his own eyes closed.

“Thank you,” she rasps out.

“No problem,” he assures her, keeping his eyes closed. “Look good?”

“A bit crooked…” she says, and that gets his attention, turning towards her, his eyes piercing into her own. But upon seeing that she hadn’t even looked, he lets out a sigh with a gruff laugh.

“You’re impossible,” he tells her, his hands coming to rest on his chest.

“But for real, thanks for saving me from the pervs of the night peering in,” she says with a nudge of her good arm at his shoulder.

“Can’t have them finding out the answer to that question before me,” he teases, and then shakes his head at how bad that came out.

The horsey laugh he claims her to have bursting out in full force at his comment.

“Who knew the biggest perv was laying next to me…”

“I’m tired, ignore me,” he claims, closing his eyes, and shifts, as if trying to bury himself further from her scrutiny.

The lay in silence, their breath syncing to the other, as one.

“For the record, I do not,” she broaches.

“Shame,” he teases.

“Yep…” she responds, before taking a big breath, disrupting their joined rhythm. “I usually sleep in old Lawson Padres t-shirts…”

A frustrated groan escapes him.

“Get some sleep, old man,” she says with a satisfied smile.


	92. Chapter 92

Ginny enters the bedroom to find Mike sitting in bed, shirtless, propped up, staring at the TV, a slight squint to his eyes, refusing wear his glasses again.

She laughs to herself, as she makes her way through the room, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood, passing in front of him.

“Not even a glance, must be something good on TV,” she teases, as she digs in the dresser for one of his old t-shirts to sleep in.

“Food network,” he gestures with the remote to the screen.

“Getting any ideas?” She asks, slipping off her pants, and tossing them onto a chair, and she can see the glint of annoyance from him, the constant neat freak forever conceding to the mess that she tended to keep her stuff, scattered around, but organized in her piles, always knowing where everything was.

“Someone has to keep us fed,” he jokes back, likely referring to the several times she’s attempted to cook, nearly burning the place down.

Letting her curls down over the shirt she’d chosen, she walks into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Looking in the mirror, reflected back at her, someone she hadn’t been familiar with in a long time, perhaps ever. A version of Ginny that let her dimples out more in the form of a smile, a light about her eyes that seemed to radiate everything around her.

Shaking her toothbrush off in the sink, she places it back in its holder, right next to Mike’s. That dimpled smile coming to her face again. A cheesy grin that she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at, thinking that somehow that was a sign that this was where she belonged.

Walking out, the air immediately pricks her bare legs, and she makes a run for the bed. Digging herself underneath the sheet, pulling the covers up to her chin.

“Every night,” he mocks, and she turns to stick her ice cold feet on his shins, causing him to jump. “Jesus, Gin.”

“It’s cold,” she says, trying to get as close as possible.

“You know they have these things called socks, I hear they work wonders,” he says, pushing himself out of bed with a creak.

“The white ones with the black stripes, the fuzzy ones,” she instruct from her spot on the bed.

“Where are they?” He asks, stretching from his spot, not appearing to be cold at all, instead he was like a furnace that she found herself snuggling up to every night.

“Umm,” she says, her hand coming to her lip. “That pile,” she points over by the window.

Rummaging through the pile, he throws the socks at her in a ball, and she happily slips them on, as she makes his way back into the bed.

“Thanks,” she says, content with the selection.

“You know…” Mike begins, looking around, his hand coming to his beard, a nervous tick, that she knew he was about to ask something important. “If you wanted to you could move in…you wouldn’t have to live in piles then,” he says, justifying the offer as a solution to her messy lifestyle, clothes streaming out of her bag, and lying scattered.

She scoots over in bed, her hand reaching out to tug on his beard with a grin.

“Are you asking me to move in, old man?”

“It’s not a big deal, you’re here every night anyway,” he plays off with logic.

“I see,” she says, pretending to mull the idea over.

“You don’t have to,” he backtracks, not wanting to put any pressure on her.

“I’’ll move in with you…on one condition,” she warns, snuggling down into the bed, reaching over to turn off the light on her side.

“This oughta be good,” he teases, a hopeful, relieved tone to his voice.

“I’m not living with you in your groupie palace,” she says, moving to give him a kiss on the cheek, a shocked look playing on his face, a laugh escaping her as she settles into the pillow.


	93. Chapter 93

"Hey, I need your help."

Mike peeks up from the magazine he’s reading, his glasses having slid down his nose, and Ginny fights back the grin that’s threatening to take over her face at the image.

He raises his brows in question, but not fully committed to the cause just yet.

“Which dress do you like better?” She asks, holding up two different ones that Amelia had given her.

That seems to catch his attention, tossing the magazine next to him on the bed, and pushing up his glasses, so he can now see what she’d presented for him.

“I don’t know, Gin, I might have to see them on,” he teases, and she sticks out her hip, throwing her head back, her ponytail bouncing with the movement, the dresses lowered as her arms come to her sides, hitting the floor in bunched material.

“I don’t want to have to change and try them on, and ugh,” she sighs, unwilling to waste anymore of her night on this selection. She contemplates calling Evelyn, but quickly dismisses the idea, knowing full well that she’d definitely get way more than she bargained for with that favor.

“Fine, the gold one,” Mike points, reaching for his magazine again.

Ginny’s head goes to the dress on her right, the sequins sparkling back up at her from the light of the bedroom. She makes a face at the dress.

“You don’t think it’s too much?” She asks, hesitantly, having been leaning more towards the black one to her left.

“Then the black one,” Mike says, no longer looking, his attention back on whatever he was reading.

“Mike, you’re zero help,” her raspy voice threatens to turn into a whine. “I’m just gonna try them on,” she declares, stomping into the bathroom.

And she swears she can hear _“I think I suggested that”_ through the door, which is met with an eye roll and she tries on the black one, a low cut in the front, flowing at the bottom, she finds herself swaying side to side, the dress catching the air and moving with her.

Walking out, she puts her hands on her hips, an annoyed look on her face for having to do this.

“So…,” she wavers, and he once again looks up from his magazine.

“Nice,” he says with a nod.

“Nice?” She questions, as if the comment had been a bad one.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” he says with a smile.

“Nope, not the one,” she says, marching back into the bathroom, and tossing the dress on the floor in a huff. Before reluctantly picking it up and hanging it back off, not wanting to hear a lecture from Amelia on wrinkling expensive dresses.

Walking out in the next dress, she tiptoes, refusing to also put on heels. She’s adjusting the material on her hips, the dress more form fitting. A stray curl escaping her ponytail and dangling in her face. She juts her bottom lip out to blow it out of her way. The errant hair just fluttering back in her way immediately.

Frustratingly, she looks up to get his attention, only to find him staring. His glasses pushed up on his nose, a grin playing on his lips, refusing to be hidden even by the monster of his beard.

“I think you’re drooling, old man,” she teases, turning to the side to get a look of the back.

“It’s…” he pauses, for once having rendered him speechless.

“Nice?” She finishes for him.

“Yeah, nice,” he says with a laugh, running his fingers through his beard.

“So this is the winner?”

“I think I said that ten minutes ago,” he says matter of factly.

“Finally,” she sighs, stripping in front of him, as she haphazardly goes to the bathroom to get back into her sweats. Hanging up the dress, she walks out with both of them, before crawling over him on the bed to her side, kneeing him in the thigh with her bony legs.

Settling next to him, she grabs his magazine from him, commandeering the reading material, reaching for her own glasses on the nightstand.

“What?” She asks, as he continues to stare at her, thinking he’s annoyed with her for stealing his reading material.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, oddly serious, no sign of joking in his tone. Her casual look of hair thrown up, glasses, and sweats.

Her finger comes up to trace the frame of his glasses, bitting her lip.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”


	94. Chapter 94

Ginny can feel the phone vibrate in her pocket, her fingertips tingling at the sensation. She refuses to answer the calls, the ones that keep coming incessantly, meaning he knows that she knows. Pursing her lips, she ducks her head as she marches through the hallway of her hotel.

Coming into her room, she throws down her bag harder than she meant to, before tossing her head back in frustration, sure that she was incapable of doing anything right tonight. She reaches for her hair tie, attempting to yank it out, instead it catches in her hair, tangling into a mess, that has her yanking at her scalp.

By the time she’s freed her hair, she crawls into bed, pulling the comforter over her head, with the warm hair trapped underneath, silencing everything but her racing mind that won’t stop playing that conversation over and over in her mind.

Closing her eyes tightly, she tries to ward off the tears, to make the voice in her head stop. But it slices through like the phone still in her pocket, vibrating once again.

Snatching the phone, she answers it without looking.

“What Lawson?” She says, louder and far more angry than she would’ve planned, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk and he just wouldn’t get the hint.

“What’d he do?” Comes the voice of Evelyn, calm, yet eager, and waiting to stab a fool with her high heel.

“Ev?” She asks, pulling the phone from her ear to see her friend’s name on the screen. She lets out a sigh that’s a cross between relief and dread.

“I’m coming over,” she announces, sensing the distress on the phone.

“No, you don’t—“ But the call has already been disconnected, the woman probably halfway out the door already, a bottle of wine in hand.

She’s not wrong when not even fifteen minutes later, her friend is pushing past her to barge into the room.

“Please, come in,” Ginny sarcastically spits out, holding her arm out, as she mopes back to bed, bypassing Evelyn sitting on the couch.

She crawls back into bed, throwing the covers over her head, until she feels a hand sink down and yank the blanket off of her. Crossing her arms, she rolls onto her back, her hair splayed across her white pillow.

Evelyn’s perched in the middle of the bed, legs tucked underneath her, looking at Ginny with care and concern, but a raised eyebrow suggesting she was only going to wait so long before she pried the information out of her.

Reluctantly, Ginny sits up, leaning against the headboard. Her fingertips grabbing onto the zipper of her pullover, slowly going up and down, her eyes transfixed on the motion, and averted from her friend’s prying gaze.

“Umm, Mike’s been…sleeping with Amelia,” she admits with sad, sardonic smile and a shake of her head.

She hears the gasp from Evelyn’s lips, and is unsurprised when she sees a manicured hand come to stop her movement.

“I’ll kill him,” she says, and although Ginny’s pretty sure she’s kidding, she wouldn’t put anything past her.

“It’s not a big deal,” Ginny tries to shrug off her hand, moving to get up from the bed. Wanting nothing more than the run away from this whole thing.

“Not a big deal? I thought for sure you’d see see the goods before Amelia,” she spits out, her name coming out with an acerbic tone that has Ginny giving a slight grin.

“They’re both adults, they can…do whatever they want,” she tries to play it off, tossing her hand out like it really wasn’t a big deal, as her heart shatters in her chest.

“You’ve had a crush on the guy since you were a kid,” Evelyn tries to reason, not saying anything that Amelia, and Mike, weren’t aware of as well.

“Yeah,” she agrees with a laugh. “And that’s all it’ll ever be,” she whispers to herself.

Before she knows it, she’s being enveloped in a hug, squishing her tall frame into her friend’s small one. And although she tries to fight it, she eventually gives in, bringing her head to her friend’s shoulder, closing her eyes on this day, and burying the anxiety for a later day.


	95. Chapter 95

“I trusted you…you lied to me…,” Ginny stumbles over her words, the alcohol impairing her thoughts, but freeing her mouth, her wandering thoughts traveling to her vocal cords, echoing into the phone.

“You’re just like Trevor…you just lie…and lie,” she points her finger at no one, tripping over her own feet in the bathroom, her hair still dripping from the pool.

“Who are you talking to?” Cara asks, walking into the bathroom with some extra towels.

“No one,” Ginny says, quickly hanging up the phone, and laughing as she’s hit in the face with a towel, making a quick catch, and bending over, her hoarse giggles traveling through the small room.

xxxx

The sun shines through the window, hitting her at the right angle, waking her in a moving vehicle.

“Where are we?” She groggily asks, squinting at the sunlight and shielding her face with her hand.

“We’re almost at the stadium,” Cara informs her with a smile.

The past night comes flooding back to her as she moves to straighten herself in her seat. Her brain feels like it’s sloshing around in her head, her thoughts coming out jumbled.

The unmistakable sound of her phone vibrates on the console of change between them.

“It’s been ringing all night,” a grin appearing on Cara’s lips at the news.

“Ugh,” Ginny groans, Amelia being the last person she wanted to deal with right now.

“You know you talk in your sleep,” she’s informed, and she covers her face with her hand, the embarrassment refusing to relinquish its hold on everything that had happened, the list just piling up.

“I don’t even want to know—“

“You kept mumbling the same name that keeps popping up on your phone,” Cara teases, grabbing the phone and tossing it into Ginny’s lap.

“Great, I mumble Amelia’s name, must’ve been a nightmare.”

That earns her a laugh from the woman generously driving her back to the life that seemed to do nothing but cause her anxiety.

“Unless Mike is a nickname for Amelia, I don’t think it was her.”

That catches her attention, her fingers quickly moving to see for herself. And sure enough, there in her notifications were twelve missed calls from Mike.

Cara changes lanes, causing her head to spin, and suddenly, she’s tossing the phone back where the change lies, not wanting to talk to the man that was partially to blame for the way she’d acted out…or rather acted normally for the first time in her life.

xxxxx

When they pull up to the stadium, she sees him before the engine is even turned off.

Cara seems to sense her reluctance, because she stays in the car with a sympathetic nod for her to get it over with.

His hands are buried in the pockets of his jacket, and she suddenly feels awkward in her t-shirt, and she yanks on the end of it, trying to make it longer.

“Hey,” she says, but he doesn’t smile at her.

“Good to see you’re okay,” he gestures to the car of a stranger.

“Yeah…I umm, decided to have some fun last night,” she says, pushing her hair to the side, a set of curls refusing to stay and flopping back over into her face.

“That explains the drunken message,” he explains, and she cringes, not even positive what she’d said, but it had obviously been worrisome enough that he’d met her down here, concerned about her safety.

“I’m—“ She begins, but he beats her to it.

“I’m sorry, Gin,” he admits. His eyes meeting hers, no sign of mirth or amusement floating around, instead he’s serious. “That’s not how I wanted you to find out about Amelia…”

And she can’t help but wrapping her arms around herself at the mention of what she’d already known.

“I’m not even sure what Trevor did,” he says with a clenched jaw, his beard hiding the annoyed expression, but only just so. “But I can’t say I appreciated being put into the same category as him.”

“I honestly didn’t mean for you to find out about him…or to compare you two,” her bottom lip making its way between her teeth, worried with the anxiety of just how badly she’d messed this up, and she catches his eye following the same path.

“You know, I tried to call you, tell you,” he says with a step towards her, causing her arms to wrap more tightly around herself.

“Yeah, I might have…ignored them,” she mumbles with a shrug.

“I am sorry, Gin,” he says again, that nickname, one she wasn’t accustomed to, somehow more personal than usual. And she could feel a sense of hope rising in a chest of anxiety. A soft smile coming to her face.

“I am too,” she admits. “Let’s just keep the past in the past, deal?

He holds out his hand for her to shake.

She gives him a narrow eye, before gripping his hand, his warm palm squeezing her hand gently, as he shakes it up and down with a grin, and she swears her stomach jumps at the touch, or maybe it was just the alcohol disagreeing with her from last night.

“Deal.”


	96. Chapter 96

Mike lays sprawled out on the couch, legs propped up on the coffee table, and a beer resting in his hand that’s lounged over the back of the furniture. A football game plays on the TV as Blip comes back from the kitchen.

Leaning a beer against his shoulder, Mike appreciatively grabs the drink, his old one about done.

“Thanks,” he says, bending over with a groan to place it on the table in front of him.

“Ahh come on,” Blip yells out at the TV, and Mike grins, his team benefiting from the call.

Peeking its head out from around the corner, checking its surroundings, a flash of hair bounds from its spot to the kitchen, a jingle of a collar the only alert of its presence.

“Is that Baker’s new cat?” Blip asks, gesturing towards where it had run off to.

“Yeah,” Mike says with a groan, clearly displaying his dislike for the animal. “She’s lucky I like her,” he says with a grin.

“Who, the cat or Ginny?” Blip jokes back.

Mike just thrown him a look that suggests his patience has already been tested with the new resident.

“I just can’t say no to her,” he tries to reason, rubbing a hand over his beard.

Blip laughs, his hand coming to his stomach.

“Yeah, keep playing like she actually asked you and didn’t just tell you after the fact,” he gets out through his laughter.

“The thing hates me,” Mike argues. “It’s like he can sense I’m a dog person.”

“Or maybe that ugly thing you have growing out of your face terrifies him as much as the rest of us,” Blip says, holding up his beer to the beard Mike was so attached to.

“You laugh now, but how long before Ginny convinces Evelyn what a great idea it is, and then you’re in the same boat as me,” Mike teases with a lift of his brow.

“I’m not the one that hates animals. In case you forgot, I already got a dog,” he admits with a satisfied grin.

“How could anyone forget about those pictures of you two making out?”

“Man, get up and get me some damn chips. The disrespect, I swear.”

“Fine,” Mike says, making his way up to get a snack Blip could’ve brought in five minutes ago when he was up himself.

Stepping around the kitchen, he searches for the chips he knows Ginny has stocked.

Opening a cabinet, he finds what he’s looking for, reaching for the bag, only to find Ginny’s cat hopping up onto the counter, sending him scattering backwards in fear, dropping the chips.

“Fuck,” he says, not the first time the cat has come out of nowhere and scared the crap out of him. “Don’t do that,” he warns, like the cat understands him.

Looking down he sees, a big set of green eyes staring back at him, and he reaches his hand out, hesitantly, before placing it on its calico head, patting it awkwardly, up and down, instead of a normal petting motion.

When he found no sudden movements to be made, he let his hand linger, eventually scratching at his ears, and he received a nuzzle against his wrist.

“You like that?” He asks, and the cat moves, arching its back against his hand, a content face reflected back at him.

He moves his hand, attempting to scoop the cat up, but it jumps down, just as he reaches for him, walking up to the bag of chips.

“You’re gonna make me work for your affection, huh? You’re just like your mom, you know that,” he bends down, carefully lowering himself to the floor, until he’s resting against the cabinets, his legs open. It’s not long before the cat moves over to him, finding his leg particularly comfortable, and choosing to lay against it, Mike’s hand coming to rest on his back.

“Man, what is taking you so long?” Blip asks, coming to find Mike on the floor with Ginny’s cat curled up against him sleeping, a content look on his friend’s face.

Whipping out his phone, he snaps a picture. Payback for the pictures of him and his dog being passed around.

“Ginny’s gonna love this.”


	97. Chapter 97

Ginny bounds down the stairs in a pair of sweatpants that she’d stolen from Mike, and a tank top that, while it never got too cold in San Diego, probably sent a chill down her back every once in a while.

Atop her head sat a cardboard crown, red, with silver glitter lining the numbers of the new year. A matching one adorning the baby that sits on her hip, a drool smile lighting up her tiny face, as her hands reach for the crown, Ginny attempting to thwart her efforts to take it off.

“What is that?” Mike asks, setting down Ginny’s snack food on the table, an assortment of chips and cupcakes that looked like way too much for the two people able to eat it, but would likely devoured by one person alone.

“Doesn’t she look so cute?” Ginny coos in a raspy voice at her baby girl.

“She looks uncomfortable,” Mike says, making a grimace, but reaches for his daughter, careful not to knock the crown off.

“What do you think, Kaia?” He asks her in a serious voice, looking into her big brown eyes, as she stares up in wonder at him.

She chooses that moment to squeal in delight.

“See, she loves it,” Ginny declares, moving to collect a plate of food that she piles high.

“Mama’s gonna go into a sugar coma,” he whispers to the girl, loud enough that Ginny hears him, but his beard tickles the baby’s cheek, and she squeals again.

“Can you believe it’s our baby’s first New Year?” Ginny says, plopping down onto the couch beside them, carefully balancing her plate.

They flip on the TV, a loud assortment of music that neither of them were too familiar with in an attempt to entertain as the countdown continues.

“She’ll probably be asleep before the ball even drops,” Mike says matter of factly, his finger holding Kaia’s tiny hand, as she waves it all around.

“I bet she’ll out last you, old man,” Ginny teases, taking a big bite of a cupcake, frosting getting on the tip of her nose.

“Cute,” Mike says, reaching over with his finger, wiping the frosting off her nose, and into his mouth.

“It’s crazy to think this time a couple years ago, I was…doing exactly this, accept I was alone,” she sadly laughs.

“She’s so lucky she has us,” Mike pretends to whisper at Kaia again.

“I am,” she says sincerely, looking at him with a dimpled grin.

“Me too,” he mouths at her, as the baby grabs at his beard.

“See, even if she’s not a fan,” Ginny cracks, shoving a handful of chips in her mouth.

xxxxx

“5…4…” the countdown blares on the TV. Mike looks over to find Ginny passed out on the couch, Kaia snuggled in between them, both of their crowns askew, and matching open mouthed expressions on their face as they slept through the New Year.

“I guess I won that bet,” he says to himself, watching them sleep as the rest of the city welcomes in the start of new possibilities. 

Mike slowly stands, moving to place a kiss on Ginny’s temple, pulling a blanket from behind him and wrapping her up, before moving to Kaia, scooping her up in his arms, her crown falling to the floor, before sitting back down, settling her on his chest, a kiss planted on the top of her head where her crown once was.

“Happy first New Year, baby girl.”


	98. Chapter 98

She hadn’t planned on getting a dog, she’d never been allowed to have one as a kid. They were too much work, too much of a distraction from baseball.

But as she walked down the street, her arm hung up in a sling, and a baggy hoodie adorning her small frame, she wore a frown that she couldn’t seem to shake these days.

Her sneakers scuffed the sidewalk, her curls flying into her face on this breezy day. Coffee had been calling her name, hoping the caffeine would put a bounce in her step, or at the very least wake her up a little from the mundane, boring days that lie ahead of her.

The shop was just around the corner, a short walk from her hotel room. As she rounded the corner, nearly colliding with a kid, a small boy with a big smile, she turns, seeing him run up to his mom, a whiny, excited pitch to his voice as he begged for something.

She sees the crates lining the window, a dog adoption of some sort taking place outside of the pet shop. Panting, tail wagging, excited faces greeted her one by one as she walked past, a soft smile spreading across her face, the first in weeks.

It’s then that she sees him, he has brown patches all over his otherwise white fur, both of his eyes hidden in the brown, but they stare up at her, pleading for someone to take him. He’s not begging outwardly like the others, instead he’s laying in the corner, the others bypassing him, whereas he waits for someone to come to him. His eyes like beacons beckoning her to bring him home.

“Hey there, buddy,” she says, reaching her good hand out to pet him.

He immediately lifts his head, his big hazel eyes meeting her brown ones, his tail hitting the ground as he wags in anticipation.

“His name’s Hank,” the woman helping to run the event tells her, and Ginny nods at her.

“Hey Hank,” she says in a raspy voice, and he tilts his nose until it hits her wrist, and then gives her a soft lick greeting her.

She’s not sure what compels her to take him with her, perhaps the loneliness that threatens to take her under or the idea of someone needing her for nothing more than a safe place to lay his head, but it’s not long before she’s sneaking him and all his things into her hotel room, hoping that no one sees what she’s done.

But as he snuggles up next to her in the big huge, empty bed, she knows that she made the right choice.

“You got a dog?” Evelyn asks with a bit of a shriek to her voice, when she picks her up the next day for physical therapy.

Ginny gives her a sheepish grin that highlights her dimples, as she glances back at Hank laying down in Evelyn’s backseat, shying away when her friend had reached to pet him.

“He better not scratch my leather,” she warns, but upon seeing the smile that Ginny throws at him, twisting around in her seat to make sure he’s okay, Evelyn can’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

Ginny and Hank become the inseparable duo, Hank’s favorite hobby, as it turns out, being Ginny’s shadow. He was possibly the most docile dog she’d ever come across, perfectly content to just lay his head on Ginny’s lap, quietly following her around the hotel, and on her runs. He didn’t seem particular impressed with most people, never mean, but choosing instead to hide behind her legs, not in fear, but as if his social energy had been depleted, and only recharged when it came to her.

“Your dog’s weird,” Blip had told her when she’d come over for a barbecue a week later, and she’d taken it as a personal offense.

“He has his quirks,” she says with a shrug, adjusting her sling. “But he’s probably happy I don’t dress him up like some people do their dogs…” she teases, throwing him a smirk.

Evelyn snickers behind him.

“You do you, baby,” Evelyn says, and then throws a horrified look towards Ginny, causing her to nearly choke on her drink. Hank hangs by her feet, ignoring the screaming kids, and tiny dog that keeps circling him, as if sizing him up, dressed in a sweater.

“What’d I miss?” Mike says, walking out onto the patio, and Ginny immediately tenses, Hank’s head lifting at her behavior, sensing she was uncomfortable. And the dog wasn’t far off. Things had been particularly awkward with Mike since her injury, since the almost kiss.

She can feel his eyes tracking her, trying to be discreet as he goes to greet Blip with a six pack, and as he turns his back, she grabs onto Evelyn’s arm.

“You didn’t tell me he was coming,” Ginny grits through her teeth.

Her friend just shrugs, as if she had nothing to do with it, when Ginny knew full well she likely had everything to do with the bearded man now moving to sit across from her.

“Who’s the hairy guy you got sitting next to you?” He asks, trying to be cute.

But she doesn’t bite.

“Hank,” she says, picking at her nail.

He pats his leg, trying to get the dog to come to him, but the dog just glares at him, as if he’d been privy to far too many private rants, and deeps sighs to know better than to betray his Ginny like that.

“Friendly,” he says, chewing his gum, a raise of his eyebrow.

She doesn’t even respond, instead moving her eyes to the dog.

“So uhh, how’ve you been?” He asks, and he must know that was the wrong thing to say, because his whole face crinkles, at her sigh.

“Great,” she says, pursed lips, accentuating her dimples, clear that she wasn’t interested in talking to him any further.

An awkward silence takes them over, before Ginny finally gets up, claiming she had to use the bathroom, Hank hot on her heels as he follows her into the house.

She can hear them discussing her before she gets inside, and it takes everything in her not to slam the door like a child.

Running the water in the bathroom against her face, she can see the nails of Hank sticking underneath the door, letting her know that she wasn’t truly alone. So it surprises her when she hears a voice.

“Gin,” Mike says, and she silently groans at him, turning off the water. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she takes a seat on the counter. “I…I haven’t been around much, and that’s…it’s fucked up, I know. I just didn’t know…if you wanted me around.” She can imagine his hand stressing on his beard, the wrinkles on his forehead appearing, and she can’t help the smile that plays on her lips, splayed across her fingers.

It goes silent, and she thinks maybe he’s left, so she hops down, a bit clumsily with only one arm to balance her, and whips open the door to find herself all alone.

“Hank?” She calls, walking into the living room, to find her dog curled up next to Mike on the couch.

“I think he likes me,” Mike says, patting his head.

“Traitor,” Ginny halfheartedly jokes, pointing at the dog, as she takes a seat next to Mike.

“Oh come on, we’re on the same team,” he says, a slight nudge at her good shoulder.

“Not anymore,” she barely whispers, her insecurities peeking through.

“Bullshit, you’re gonna be fine,” Mike says, turning his head towards her, but his hand never leaving the dog’s head.

“I’m glad one of us thinks so,” she admits.

“Maybe I can help,” Mike says and Ginny’s face screws up into one of confusion. “I know a thing or two about injuries,” he explains.

“You would, old man,” she teases, the nickname slipping out for the first time in a long time.

“I’m serious, Gin,” and she can feel the heat climb her neck at the offer, her lip slipping between her teeth.

“We’ll see,” she says, not wanting to commit to anything just yet.

“I don’t know, Hank might demand it,” and Ginny looks to see her dog completely enamored with the man.

And she can’t blame the poor guy either because all the while she thinks…

_Yeah, me too, buddy. Me too._


	99. Chapter 99

No one saw Ginny walk in. And definitely no one saw her wind up for a fastball that was sent straight into the tv monitor that hung in the middle of the room.

All eyes immediately turned towards her, but all that was seen was the door as it closed, her figure having fled from the room.

“Girl’s got some aim,” Mike hears, and he gives a sigh, running his hand through his beard, before he takes off after her.

Glancing in the hallway, he doesn’t immediately see her, but he has a feeling he knows where she’s taken off to.

At a slow gait, he moves steadily towards his destination, his knees protesting with each step, the game having taken its toll on him, and his joints begging to be soaked in a tub of ice. Instead he was trying to track down Ginny.

Finally seeing the doorway he needed, he opened the door, to see her sitting on a box, the heels of her palm digging into her watery eyes, her hair having been yanked from its ponytail now stood in wild disarray.

“How did you find me?” Ginny asks, glancing around, making sure no one else was around, before he moved completely into the closet, shutting the door, and leaving them in the dark.

His eyes wait to adjust to the lack of light, only the crack from the bottom of the door offering any chance of seeing anything.

“You know, the thing about secret hiding places is you don’t tell anyone about them,” he says, stumbling over to her. A loud groan escaping him as he moves to sit down next to her, his knees screaming at him to stop.

“I didn’t think you were listening,” she admits, making a sniffling nose, as if trying to hide that she had been crying. The hiding in a closet, and outburst of a broken TV not enough evidence to the contrary.

“Well, I was. So next time you want to hide, let’s pick somewhere a little less…here,” he finishes, extending his legs in front of him.

Before he knows it, she’s leaning her head against his shoulder, and he’s audibly sighing at what he’d gotten himself into.

“They all think I’m a joke,” she mutters into the darkness, as if hoping that her admission will be swallowed, unseen and unheard. “And you’re somehow the hero.”

“I don’t know, I think one of them suggested I was a creep,” he jokes, hoping she’ll find the old man insinuation amusing, given how often she called him that herself.

He can’t see her face in the dark, but he can hear her horsey laugh at his attempt to cheer her up.

Her arm comes to wrap around his, pulling herself closer to him.

“I knew this would happen,” she groans, the inevitability of their relationship being outed, one that they had anticipated. But not right after a game, and certainly not in the way in which it was. Pictures of them from the night before smeared across the screen, the judgment thrown almost immediately. Landing in silence only at her ball slamming into the screen.

This had been the reason they’d teetered on the edge of whether or not this was a good idea. Only to discover that as inevitable as it had been that they would end up in this situation, their relationship just as sure. For as hard as they tried to fight it, hide in the relationships of others, they always seemed to find each other.

“So I guess that’s it,” he sighs, knowing that for all that they tried, he wasn’t the least bit willing to jeopardize her career even more.

“You breakin’ up with me?” She asks, a bit of a southern drawl to her words.

“Are you?” He throws to her.

“I probably should, you are a bit of a creep, old man” she teases back, and he doesn’t fight the smile. Her pitching the joke right back to him.

“But you are not even close to being a joke,” he assures her, reaching for her hand in the glow of the outside light, their hands entwining, as they continue to sit together, the darkness, letting their last few moments of scrutiny linger before they went out to face the world.


	100. Chapter 100

"You just hate losing, admit it."

Ginny extends her long legs to rest on the dashboard, having kicked off her sandals. Her feet sway, dancing along to the beat of the song that she had playing on the radio, humming a tune she wasn’t quite sure of the title…or the lyrics, but it sounded familiar. Her good mood extending to the dimpled smile she wore on her face.

A playful slap hits her thigh.

“Get your gross feet off the dashboard, Rookie,” she hears Mike over the song.

She makes absolutely no move to do so, just glances over at him, lowering her sunglasses so her can see her expression.

“My feet are not gross,” she declares, wiggling her freshly painted toes so he can see. “You just hate losing, admit it,” she teases, playfully jabbing his arm.

“Smart, hit the driver,” he says, not even his foul mood able to bring Ginny down.

“Oh come on, that was fun,” she says, bouncing in her seat, reaching for the volume.

But he quickly turns it down just as soon as her arm goes back to its spot against her thigh.

“Nope, nope. You know the rules,” she says, bringing her lip between her teeth to see if he would actually comply.

With a deep sigh, and a glare sent towards her, he reaches for the volume, turning it up to where she had had it.

“Happy?” He asks, and his tone paired with the beard almost makes him look like a grumpy teddy bear.

She doesn’t respond, just smiles big over at him, the sun creating almost a halo effect behind her as her dimpled grin hits him.

“You know, I should’ve demanded a rematch, there was something wrong with my club, it was bent and—“

“Are you trying to say that I won on a technicality?” She asks turning towards him, removing her feet and bringing them to the seat so she can sit on top of them.

“No…” he groans. “I’m saying that I was clearly at a handicap,” he argues.

“Oh, you’re at a handicap alright, old man,” she mumbles. “Just admit it, come on, you’ll feel better once you say it out loud,” she teases, reaching over to grab at him.

“Gin,” he warns.

Her hand tucks behind his neck, as she leans over in her seat, her fingers tangling in his hair.

“Come on, it’s still true even if you don’t say it, you might as well be the bigger man,” she goads, knowing that his competitive streak will want to prove that he was the best of the losers.

She can tell he’s narrowing his eyes into a squint at her even with his sunglasses on, but she just keeps smiling, the console digging into her side as she continues to lean towards him.

“Fine, Ginny Baker, you are the superior mini golf player,” he says in the most unenthusiastic voice she’s ever heard. But it doesn’t stop her from yanking her hand back, throwing them both up in the air in victory.

Then she settles, shrugging her shoulder as if it were no big deal.

“And…”

“And you’re free to pick what we listen to for the next week…”

Ginny fakes a cough.

“Month,” he sighs.

“Thank you,” she says sweetly, leaning over again to place a kiss on his cheek.

“But next time, I’m picking what we play, and I’m gonna win,” he says, his eyes flickering over to her, a small smile playing on his lips, as if almost proud that she had kicked his ass. Because honestly, it hadn’t even been close.

“If you say so, old man,” she says, turning up the volume on the new Taylor Swift song.

“I wish I was a deaf old man,” he grumbles to himself, Ginny’s legs coming to rest on the dashboard once again, badly humming.


	101. Chapter 101

Ginny staggers onto the bus, ready to collapse into bed after the long day she’d had. She’s one of the first people on, moving to the back and sliding over to a window seat.

She settles in, body so exhausted that she feels a bit like floating, a headache about to make its appearance if she didn’t close her eyes soon. Her head makes its way against the cool glass, lulling her eyes to a flutter, as the vibration of the engine rattles the glass against her.

The seat moves as someone sits beside her, and she doesn’t even have to open her eyes to know who it is. She can hear the chew of his gum, the scent of something so distinctly him, she’s never been able to completely pinpoint what exactly. 

Peeking an eye open at him, she glances over to see him scooting forward to extend his legs a bit, the tight space doing nothing to help his knees. His arms are crossed, and he looks like he’s about to fall asleep too.

Sensing that she’s staring, he turns towards her, and she contemplates snapping her eye shut and pretending she’s asleep.

“Long day,” he says, settling his head back against the headrest, slightly wiggling against her to get comfortable.

She moves to say something but a yawn tears through her, and she can’t do anything but nod, as she covers her mouth.

“Go to sleep, rookie,” he laughs, before closing his own eyes to her.

She feels like she’s just fallen asleep when she’s suddenly slammed forward, hitting the seat in front of her, her arms flailing to catch her in the impact.

The commotion of her teammates seem to muffle, as her chest begins to contract, in and out, her breath coming in shallow gasps, sweat peeking its way across her forehead, as she seemingly tries to curl into a ball.

“Ginny, Gin,” she can barely hear next to her, her hand resting on her chest, the close call of a collision igniting a panic that had been resting dormant since the last car accident she’d been in. She sat hunched over, and it wasn’t until she physically found herself being lifted that she realized Mike was still sitting next to her, his hands working to get her upright.

She tries to look up, her face pleading with him to help, somehow, her eyes moving everywhere until they land on his face, concern written all over him.

“You’re okay,” he says, trying to move her closer. “Gin, you’re okay. We’re okay,” he tries to soothe her, but her mind is racing. Closing her eyes she sees blood and glass scattered everywhere, mixed with tears that she sometimes still finds herself waking up to. 

“Ginny, look at me,” he asks as her gasps become closer together, air refusing to move.

Soon his hands are on her face, the calluses of his hand rubbing against her cheeks.

“Ginny, hey, breathe with me,” she thinks he says, her ears still muffling sounds, but she tries to mimic his breathing pattern.

_In. Out. In. Out._

She focuses solely on her breathing, her eyes counting the flecks of green in his eyes, watered with worry, until they’re breathing in tandem, her anxiety slowly dissipating with every breath they take together.

Reality seemingly settling down upon her, as she realizes that the bus has begun moving again.

Mike breaks eye contact first, drawing his hands back, and awkwardly moving to turn forward in his seat.

Ginny drops her head, taking a few deep breaths.

“You uhh…you okay?” He asks, beginning to chew his gum again.

She slowly nods at him, only slightly embarrassed, before settling back in her seat.

She doesn’t even realize that she’s grabbed his hand until she looks down, his thumb gently moving across her knuckles.

“Yeah,” she says, daring to look back up at him, a relieved grin playing on his lips. “I’m okay,” she says, and he squeezes her hand.


	102. Chapter 102

Ginny slows down, her hands coming to rest on her knees, deep breaths pounding through her chest. 

It’s a good minute before Mike comes up behind her, nearly groaning from the lack of air flow, his face not so subtly claiming that every part of his body was screaming at him for taking on this challenge.

Sauntering up to him, a bounce in her step. Ginny’s finger pushes on his shoulder as he bends over.

“I think I won,” she throws out with a dimpled grin. 

His head shakes, still looking down, before slowly moving upright with a moan.

“I think you have a few good years on me,” he says, raising his brow, always using every excuse he can when she beats him.

“God Mike, sometimes you make the old man jokes too easy,” she says collapsing onto the grass of the park.

She spreads her limbs out, as he too sinks to his knees before laying down next to her.

His hands rest on his chest, and she counts his breaths, as her hands move through the blades of green below her fingers. Tickling her palms, she bites back a smile.

“You know if you didn’t have to make everything into a bet, you wouldn’t have to lose so much,” she teases, moving to tug on his beard gently.

“Gin,” he says out of breath. “You hit me in the chest and said, ‘Race ya,’ before taking off,” he explains, and a sheepish grin appears on her face.

Okay, so maybe she had initiated that one, but she’d also won.

Rolling over onto her stomach, she kicks her feet up, dangling them in the air, resting on her elbows.

“You owe me,” Mike says, his eyes closing, concentrating on regaining his breath.

Ginny moves to answer when she sees a rustling in the bushes. Squinting to get a good look, she sees it, quite possibly the saddest looking kitten. Her fur is matted and sticking up in places, obviously a stray. She opened her mouth making a strangled mewl that suggested she was hungry and trying to garner attention.

Pushing herself up, she makes her way over the bushes, as the kitten shrinks back into the brush.

“Hey, come out, sweetie,” she nearly purrs, and after some coaxing the kitten peeks its head out.

It’s not long before the skittish kitten has deemed Ginny safe enough, hunger weighing out over fear and she’s clumsily climbing over her lap.

Ginny’s enraptured with the tiny animal, hoarsely laughing at how loud she is for such a small little thing.

She hears his groan before she sees him, standing above her.

“That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” he grumps, and she swears her lip pops out into a pout.

Covering the kitten’s ears, she looks up at him.

“Shhh, she’ll hear you,” she says, removing her hands. “He didn’t mean it, sweetie,” she whispers to the cat.

“Rookie, we are not keeping it,” he warns, already stepping away.

“But she’s so cute!” Ginny argues, snuggling the kitten into her chest as she stands.

“Gin,” Mike tries, but she can already detect the defeat in his voice.

“Look how cute she is,” she says again, holding the kitten up to his face. The animal letting out a loud meow at him. “Think of it as my reward for beating you,” she teases, focusing her attention back on the little thing, its claws catching on her shirt.

“I never made the bet,” he says, turning his back and ready to walk off.

“Mike,” she says, and he stops walking. “Please,” she says in that voice that she knows he can’t say no to.

She can see the big intake of breath he takes, and she knows she’s won. Again.

“You’ll love her, you’ll see,” Ginny says, catching up to him and then quickly passing him, muttering about names.

“So I guess we’re cat people now?” Mike says, following behind her.

Ginny turns back, a sly look on her face, and he knows exactly what she’s going to say.

“Don’t, too easy,” he warns. She just shrugs, a small smile tugging at his beard as he watches her excitement.


	103. Chapter 103

Ginny sits with her legs stretched out on the couch, a giant hoodie adorning her frame, and her curls hanging over her shoulders, a hair tie resting on her wrist.

The rain outside pelted down on the roof, leaving a spell of noise dripping around the pair as they sat in the living room, cable out due to the storm.

Her finger makes its way to her wrist, the hair tie loose from having held her hair up all day. Moving it to where it rests on the first joint of her finger, she stretches it a bit, pulling on it. Slowly letting it loose, so it snaps back on her wrist making a dull smacking noise against her skin.

She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, but soon she’s snapping the hair tie every few seconds, almost in time with the rain coming down against the windows.

“Could you stop that already?” Mike snaps, causing Ginny to pause mid-grip of the black elastic around her arm.

“Well someone’s grumpy, old man,” she says, brow furrowed.

He narrows his eyes at her behind his glasses, looking up from the magazine he’s reading.

She squints her eyes right back at him, until he gives up with a shake of his head, going back to reading.

Throwing her feet to the floor, she moves to sit next to him. Plopping down to where it rustles the couch, jarring his magazine, and causing a heavy sigh to escape his lips.

“What do you want, Gin?” He asks, not letting his eyes leave his reading material.

“I’m bored,” she says with nearly a pout to her lips.

“You really are like a five year old,” he says with a gruff laugh.

“Come on, play a game with me,” she says, coming to rest her chin on his shoulder.

“Why, so you can trick me into losing another bet?” He says, not quite ready to owe her for what felt like the millionth time.

“How about you pick the game?” She suggests with a raise of her brow, trying to entice him to entertain her.

“I’m not playing, rookie.”

“Fine, sore loser,” she says, lightly tracing the rim of his black glasses that he had on, before huffing to the couch, vacating his shoulder.

The tiniest of grins, hidden in his beard is seen at her gesture, Mike always fascinated with her attraction to his glasses.

“You know, you could read too,” he suggests, bending over a little to grab another magazine from the stack to land on her lap.

“Men’s Health,” she read aloud. “Are you serious?”

The only response she receives is a laugh, as she tosses the magazine back onto the coffee table, sliding across the glass.

Letting out a bored sigh, exaggerated, trying to attract his attention, but he powers through, choosing to ignore her.

Her fingers move back to her hair tie, and a sly grin plays against her lips. Eying Mike, she moves her finger, quickly snapping the elastic again.

“Okay, a game,” Mike says, throwing down the magazine, an annoyed look thrown at her.

“I knew I’d win,” she says with a deep smile.


End file.
